


Forget Me Nots Don't Grow Here

by shadow_in_the_shade



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, BDSM, Bondage, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/F, F/M, Intrigue, M/M, Master/Pet, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Threats of Violence, Threats of torture, Troubled Past, Whipping, captive prince au, costume porn, dominance battles, political turmoil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:38:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 69,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7587241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_in_the_shade/pseuds/shadow_in_the_shade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milathos Captive Prince AU. Athos has his lands taken over and is sent as a slave offering to Vere. They could not have picked a worse choice of owner and nothing goes to plan. To the West of Milady's estate Porthos has been made Comte de Belgard and owner of an exceedingly pretty slave boy; to the east Ninon de Larroque has a positive harem of young girls. Political machinations, extreme costume porn and unexpected romance ensue. </p><p>For the most part this really isn't a crossover with CP but Milathos set in the CP world with King Louis as King of Vere. However I have altered the tags back to include Captive Prince since Damen and laurent do make a brief but vital appearance in the last two chapters with nods to other characters and CP themes througout the rest! For a full list of potential trigger warnings related to the setting check the "Content you may encounter" section here: http://freece.livejournal.com/39701.html</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**1.**

**Akielos**

There must be rocks strapped to his eyelids, he thinks; yes, and all of his limbs as well. He is used to consciousness being painful, but this is different beyond the usual pain. He feels his knees first, they feel raw, bruised, all but broken. He is on them. He wishes he could drag his eyes open beyond just a crack. It is bright. Too bright. It is always too bright. He can smell dry grass and meadow flowers and her. But he can always smell her, like a curse. It is a lie, all of it a lie. She is not here.

He hears voices near him, before he can get his eyes to open.

“Thank the gods. I thought you’d killed him.”

“Would anyone care?”

“You can’t just kill a man and take his land. Trust me.”

“Really? Because I thought that was exactly what we were doing.”

“And that, my dear Renard, is why you need me if you want to take this land.”

Renard. He should have known. The man had been angling for Pinon ever since he himself became absent in anything other than body. He knew the other from somewhere too, he was almost sure of it, just could not quite put his finger on it.

“Well what will we do with him then? He’d make a terrible slave.”

“Hmmm -” That voice was dangerous. He fought strenuously to open his eyes and could not manage more than a crack, “In Akielos perhaps. Not everywhere has quite our – exacting standards.”

Hard golden earth, dry grass, everywhere a swimming blurred sea of green and gold. he shifted and realised that his wrists were bound behind him – no chained, a thick golden chain, connected to a thinner one running up his back to a heavy gold collar at his neck. That was bad. He fought back the urge to panic, dared a struggle to no avail.

“He’s coming round. Amazing.”

“He’s strong. He could be worth a fair price.”

He raised his head beneath all the weight that seemed to balance upon it; the figures wavered above him. Renard and a man with something black where one of his eyes should have been – an eye patch – that meant – he shook his head. He had to be still imagining things. Why would the Regent himself come all the way up from Ios to deal with him – with _this_ – whatever this was. A comparatively minor land dispute on the border of Aegina and Thrace.

He had been to Ios once. He would have preferred not to think about it, but the visit had been unforgettable for too many reasons. Such a beautiful place, all white marble columns and exotic gardens, archways and colonnades, the great palace overlooking the cliff top gleaming white in the sun, the ever present smell of the sea and the promise of that bright flash of kingfisher blue around every corner. He had felt like a foolish country boy in such a dazzling metropolis, not the heir to a vast estate that he should have been.

And then there had been the slaves. He was used to slaves, of course – as used as he could have been, and his family were too important in their district not to have had many of their own, but it was nothing to what he saw in the capital. He was torn between intrigue and disgust. He knew he was ludicrous but slavery had never seemed as right or natural to him as he supposed it ought to feel. But then he had seen _her_ and there was no room within him to think about anything else, let alone the social structure. She was exquisite, golden and white in her shift and perfect with a bright sweet flash of blue at her shoulder in a tiny trail of crystal flowers and her eyes like another set of jewels, blinding him even through the sunlight.

He had thought she was a noble woman at first and like the fool he was he said so without thinking, mumbling tongue-tied into her hand as he bent to kiss her fingers. He could still remember her laugh, the spark of merriment that shone pure emerald in her eyes. He was ready in that instant to live forever in the corner of her smile, done for at first glance.

She was no noblewoman, she laughed at the idea – she was just a lady in waiting to the Lady Jokaste. He did not care, he said without pausing to think or even breathe, though he supposed that his family might. It didn’t matter; whatever she was she had to be his, anything else was unthinkable

And _she wanted to be his._ She loved him too, she said. He could barely believe it. She was like a dream, so beautiful, clever and cultured beyond his own ability or belief. He felt utterly undeserving of her attention, let alone her love. He was in awe, ready to live in her eyes, die in her arms and so he married her. It was as obvious a thing to do as to breathe.

God, how he hated himself. He hated everything. Here he was, even in a situation like this and ludicrously thinking of her. Again. One trace of an Ios accent and he was gone.

“You can’t mean –” Renard was saying.

“But of course –” he could hear the grin slip like oil across the Regent’s face – “Why not?”

“But – sell him to the Veretians?” he was actually glad for Renard’s spluttering stupidity. He was too groggy, too bruised – he needed it spelled out to him – “But they – they don’t even have slaves – they turn them all into –”

“Pets, yes, did you think I didn’t know that? But a pet can be tamed more easily than a slave can it not? Broken without anyone questioning it, and they don’t think nearly as hard before breaking them as we would with a slave here. Such savages they are in Vere.” He said this last quite idly; almost, Athos thought, with a vague hint of enjoyment – or respect. He could not fight down an instinctive revulsion for the concept. At least in Akielos they accepted that their slaves were what they were – he had heard enough tales of the Veretians, of their hypocrisy and their excesses – to turn his stomach.

He felt quite sick at the thought of where all of this was going and, feeling sick, he thought of her. Of course. She had not been what she said she was. He had thought it could not have mattered but he had not once imagined the truth. He had spent every moment since his furious reaction to that truth regretting what he had done with every ounce of his body and soul but at the time it had seemed sharply, painfully perfect. She had come from Vere in the first place after all, a convicted criminal sold as a slave to the Akielons – so why not send her back in the same state he had found her? It sickened him now to think what he might have condemned her to by this action but there seemed no way he could undo it.

He thought about how happy she had been when he had first brought her home. He had expected her to miss the glamour and excitement of the city and when she had not been he had been too blind, too in love to guess the truth. She had seemed such an innocent, her wide eyes, the way she smiled in the morning when she looked at him, shifting so comfortably in the sheets, taking such guileless pleasure in every sweet sensation. That, in the end was what had disgusted him most of all – that even the innocence in her eyes could have been a lie.

He could not believe he was thinking about this now. Still. His eyelids felt less heavy, like he was shedding scales, but he could still barely see – now for the sweat dripping into them. He was half becoming aware of what had happened, memory returning in a nauseating slide. He had been drunk – well that was obvious – weaving his way back home in the grey hours of morning. Then a brief banging pain at the back of his head, his eyeballs reeling. He had clearly been kicked in the ribs as well, he could feel the bruise, see the stain of bruise spreading. It had been as simple a take down as that. He should have seen it coming, all things considered. He should have cared. He hadn’t cared. He knew, with thick sticky self-pity,  how fitting this was, how much he deserved it. Because of her. He had had this coming. But that did not stop him from a gut anger and fight in himself at finding himself restrained. He wrestled to free his hands or to stand and could do neither.

“Turn me loose, damn you!” His voice was rough, his throat felt as though it had been grated, sandpapered. Speaking hurt and his voice was a wavering, keening squeak, balancing on rasping grittiness.

“He hardly seems like pet material,” Renard remarked impassively.

“What did I say? They train their pets well in Vere, though I don’t know how’ll they’ll make _this_ one pretty.” if Renard was bad it was clear that Rochefort was worse – “I’m sure we’ll find someone  who can work out a design for him and an owner who can rise to the challenge. Enjoy it even.”

“You sound as though you have someone in mind.”

“Know your enemies, my dear Count. I have made it my business to acquaint myself with all members of the nobility, Veretian even more than Akielon –”

The next thing he said was so quiet – almost a whisper – that even straining to hear Athos could not make it out.

“But that’s –” Renard spluttered – “The Veretians would never allow it! You know they only keep pets of the same – I mean – well – the men keep men and the women only keep women! To avoid children being born outside of marriage! They’re obsessed! They think it’s an abomination –” His voice was growing very high in his confused objection – “They’d never allow it!” he finished, flailing.

“Sometimes my dear – should I say _Comte de la Fere?_ – you really are excessively stupid. Don’t you see? _They’re already married.”_

__x__

  **This fic gonna be a long one. I promise everything that doesn't make sense now will forthwith. :-) Also my beloved enemiesbrotherslovers has illustrated this chapter here: http://enemiesbrotherslovers.tumblr.com/post/147977376763/first-illustration-for-shadow-in-the-shade-s**

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

 

**2.**

**Vere**

It had taken her the better part of five years to make it to this point, but she could not help reflecting now that she had done quite surpassingly well.

It had been a hot and heavy summer. If there was one thing lacking that she could have wished for it would have been the cool, loose freedom of Akielon clothing. She could see herself drifting carefree through the summer air, the edge of a white shift skimming the tall grasses, sending up seeds and gusts of flower particles into the air; could almost hear laughter, feel that sense of expectation imminent and intimate in the breeze. She blinked it away, wiped sweat from her eyes – that was another girl, another name, another life and there was no breeze at all today anyway. She shrugged it off; there had been so many names and lives.

She took a drink from a pet passing with a silver filigree tray, raspberry and lemon with ice – she huffed a breath of pleasure out loud and shooed the girl away, asking her to come back with more. She used her pets more like the Akielons did their slaves, she supposed. Well,  it was not unheard of, and besides having girls as bed slaves was of no more than passing interest to her. She was not like the Comtessa de Larroque with her girls or the newly made Comte de Belgard, almost embarrassingly in love and everyone knew it with his beautiful, favourite pet.

She was restless today. She got up and walked slowly down through the gardens, touching leaves and papery petals as she went, tearing them up in her fingers. Perhaps it was the weather, reminding her more of an Akielon summer than what was usual for Vere. It kept throwing her back. She did not need that. She forced herself to walk sedately, as straight and tense as she could be; it was not difficult in this dress, tied in with layers of stiff fabric and corsetry. It had taken two girls and the best part of an hour to lace her into it this morning, the Veretians clearly viewing clothing as some form of torture . She was almost dreading the rigmarole of unlacing later – or she would have been if she had not half wanted to tear her way out of all this herself, if it were just not so hot –

She missed Ios and that ever present idea of bright blue on the horizon, the cool offered up by the sea breeze. She paused beneath an olive tree, snapped a branch off between her fingers. She sighed; she wished she could unlace her boots and feel the grass, warm and soft and crinkling between her toes. In Akielos it would have been normal; here it was positively unseemly.

Which, when she considered it, was utterly ridiculous. She thought about the court, the palace at Arles, the slave fights that ended in rape as a spectator sport for the nobility. A man could unlace his breeches and have a slave attend him in public but never unlace a single eyelet at the wrist or loosen a shoe. She was glad to have escaped from the court and to have done so with an estate to her new name was something she prided herself on more than just a little.

She had been sent there five years ago as an offering to Queen Anne. She was not quite sure quite how she had gained at least that bit of good fortune; everyone knew that the queen was uninterested in pets as bed slaves but would be far too gracious to refuse a gift from the Regent of Akielos, who was after all a childhood friend of hers as well as the man in charge of a neighbouring country. What _had_ been a surprise was that she had then caught the eye of no less a person than King Louis of Vere, and that _was_ strange because everyone was aware how generally he preferred his boy pets even to his own queen.

She had, of course, grabbed the opportunity with both hands, working it for all she was worth. Which, as it turned out, was a great deal. But in the end she had actually come to despise the depravity and the machinations of the Veretian court more than she had enjoyed its many luxuries. In this she had surprised herself, not having imagined she would still have a heart to care.

She had made her break well though, she was proud of that too. She had annoyed Louis just enough that he felt as though he was showing her ill favour and a dis-service by sending her into the country and, while it was indeed not the small principality he had offered her once it was a substantial enough estate to satisfy and did not imply with it any threat that the king might at some point want her back.

It was perfect really, her closest neighbours almost half a day’s ride on either side, the Larroque estate to the east and Belgard’s lands to the west. It was perfect for her this way; to be, for the first time in her life, mistress of herself and her own world, however small.

She knelt down in the dry grass, squinting at a straggle of flowers under the tree. She brushed them gently with her fingertips and an ache of reflection. But they were too large, too bright; and besides she knew, logically, that forget me nots did not grow in Vere.

“My lady!” There was more panting, more of a need to catch breath in the voice than there were words. She looked up frowning lightly.

“Celine, don’t run in this heat,” she said, not sure if she was aiming for considerate or scolding – “Now what is it?”

The girl stood for a moment with her hands on her knees, breathing hard. Her mistress envied her the dress if nothing else. In this weather she would almost have traded places with her if only to have gone so sparingly clad and if not for the embellishments and requirements that came with it. Nobody was collaring her again, making her kneel to anyone, not ever, not for anything.

“For goodness sake girl, get it out.”

“My lady – the courier’s here with the gift from Akielos.”

“Oh,” she raised an uninterested eyebrow – “That. See, I said it wasn’t worth running for.” The girl was still standing there.

“Well – go on! Tell them I’ll be there presently, and don’t bother to hurry because I won’t.”

Celine nodded rapidly and headed off again, only half running this time. Milady suspected she was a little afraid of her. All of her attendants seemed to be that way; she was not wholly sure what she had done, but it was at least faintly amusing.

She sighed, picked up her skirts, stroking the soft but heavy material beneath her hands, and started back up through the gardens.

She had no idea why the Regent of Akielos would send her anything, let alone as unsolicited as this, and she was more than faintly suspicious. On the other hand she was at least slightly acquainted with the man and had heard of a tendency he had to attempt to curry favour with the Veretian nobility. And she knew well enough how much they enjoyed turning their more attractive criminals and fallen nobility into slave gifts as a good will offering to Vere. She wondered what manner of criminal they had chosen to send her and was vaguely amused contemplating what she might do with the girl.

The dispatch was waiting for her in the courtyard in front of the villa. The first thing she noticed, viewing from a distance, was that to her incredible surprise the slave was not a girl. It was not until she got closer that she realised how they had managed to slip this by. She stopped, just out of sight of the offering and its handler in the centre of the courtyard and hidden behind a pillar she first took a deep breath at the kick in the chest which memory offered up, and then put her hand over her mouth, restraining the urge to laugh.

She restrained it well and walked briskly out to meet the envoy. She looked at the man leading the small party and at nobody else.

“Milady de Winter,” the man nodded to her – “A gift from The Comte de Rochefort, Regent of Akielos, with his respects”.

“Really?” she asked, archly – “His respects? And does the Regent of Akielos ask anything in return for so –” she flickered the faintest downwards glance towards the man in chains – “ _Thoughtful_ a gift?”

“None, my lady, but the pleasure of your acquaintance,” the man nodded again, his head was starting to look like a boat out at sea, bobbing gently on a wave.

“Hmm. You may thank his lordship from me and tell him I accept receipt of his gift if not his acquaintance. If I am ever in Ios I shall be sure to thank him in person”.

She was careful not to add _if he is ever in Vere_ and knowing well enough that she neither wished nor was able to return to Akielos. It was, perhaps, not the wisest choice of words but she was distracted thinking of the foreknowledge and thought that had gone into this move, wondering what the Regent’s intentions were,  and if he knew of her circumstances and what had happened in Pinon to bring this about. Her eyes had narrowed in suspicion.

“Is there anything else?”

“His excellency advised that you accept also the guards that come with him as the slave has been – less than acquiescent to his position and may for some time be prone to displays of ill behaviour.”

“Yes,” now she did smile, a curving, bladed knife of a smile – “Yes I am sure he is. Thank you; that will do.”

The man nodded again, taking his own guards with him and hurrying back to his carriage as though eager to be away.

Left alone in the courtyard but for the slave and the two guards who waited at a safe distance, as invisible as they could make themselves, she finally looked down.

He would not look up at first and she could well imagine why. She had never seen him so decorated, so smooth and polished, hair shiny with oil and his arms and upper torso painted in the perfect manner of a Veretian pet. She was not sure if she admired or pitied his designer but they had surpassed themselves completely. The slave had been ornamented very simply for Vere with a heavy gold collar at the neck and wrist cuffs to match, a delicate gold link chain running down his back to a gold belt and simple white linen breeches. His shoulders were adorned with gold paint stemming from a fleur – de – lys at the shoulder, trailed around with surprisingly delicate black and gold vines, swirling down his arm and around his neck, black spikes creeping under the collar and up the lower half of his face. The effect was immensely enticing though almost not as much so as imagining his rage at it being done. When he slowly raised his eyes she could see a savage black spike of eyeliner tipped with gold and above that, eyes that glared up at her redly, blazing with unsurpassed fury.

She did nothing more than raise an eyebrow in response, allowing her smile to spread coolly –

“Well well” she remarked, pausing as the girl finally reappeared with her drink and taking a sip icily – “An Akielon on its knees. How incredibly appropriate, wouldn’t you say?”

__x__

 

This chapter also illustrated by the very excellent zedrobber here: http://enemiesbrotherslovers.tumblr.com/post/148175421878/second-illustration-for-shadow-in-the-shades


	3. Chapter 3

 

**3.**

He had not imagined it could get worse.

They had taken him in a cart, thrown into the back and trussed up like livestock, but that was only the beginning. The first night they stopped was at a small fort just north of the border. He looked about him as much as he could in the short while he was outside and able to take note of his surroundings; the night air sang with crickets and the moon shone bright silver on the upper branches of the wiry trees, citrus and olive, their smells drifting past on the evening breeze. Vere; in other circumstances it might have been beautiful.

The second night they stopped was worse. He had been propelled ungently towards the underground bath house where the water came up warm from the underground springs. His captors had handed him over to a team of Veretian servants who had looked him over as though they were at least masters of him with their noses raised in faint disgust.

“You’ll have your work cut out for you with this one,” the guards laughed and left them to it. After much clicking of tongues and scowling, they set to work- he was prodded and shoved first from one bath to the other until he felt as though his skin had been scrubbed clean off before being handed from specialist to specialist. He fought against the man with the shaving razor so hard he had to be threatened with violence, which, they insisted, they really didn’t want to do as they were already going to have a hard enough time covering up the bruises he already had. They said it as though this was his fault. After his initial savage struggles he submitted, teeth clenched and his skin prickling and unfamiliar to his own touch when they were done.

Then the make-up artists. He wanted to fight again but being passed around like some kind of courtesan was taking the fight out of him more than the threatened violence ever could have done. Again he submitted, wondering how he was going to get out of this before it went further. He was _not_ ready to play bed slave to some perverted Veretian equivalent of Renard and was prepared to save all his fight for that rather than waste it on servants.

But left alone, hands tied, that night, the shaking came and any fight he might have had sweated and tore  its way out of him in a fit that did not seem to pass. It had not occurred to him before that it had been five years since he had gone this long without a drink, it had not been a priority considering. By the time he was woken in the morning he had to be sent straight back down to the bath house to be re-washed and his paint re-applied. He had felt as weak as a kitten, unable to do anything, go anywhere other than where they poked and prodded him and soon they were travelling again.

When they finally stopped in the late afternoon he felt faintly ill but by now had at least rested enough to be more angry than anything else. He looked around him, finally settling on the white marble villa just a little way up an inclining front lawn sloping down to the gate at which they had stopped to look him over; clearly, before presenting him to a master. It was his last chance to attempt escape, and he attempted it, but it was in the end a feeble thing and easily crushed. They brushed him off dismissively, neatened him up and led him up to the front courtyard as though walking a dog.

He smelled her before he saw her and, like the dog they clearly thought him to be, his ears pricked up when he heard her step, but he refused to raise his eyes from the marble floor. There were veins of rose running through it, crystalline highlights in the stone. _No_ he thought _dear gods no, it can’t be it can’t –_ Memory assailed him like a waterfall that might have knocked him down if he had not been already on his knees. The scent of her, unchanged after five years flooded him, making his eyes leak and his nostrils flare. He let his gaze drift across the stone to the edge of her skirt, a deep dark green, stiff brocade and hints of silk embroidery stiffly brushing the floor, he caught a glimpse of her foot when she walked, the heels clipping the marble, the edge of the laces that would run all the way up to her knee. He swallowed thickly, head spinning, a lady then, somehow she had become nobility. He wondered how. What had she done? Had she known about him? Was she behind it all? What, in fact was going on?

When the others left he could feel her looking down at him for a long time and eventually he could not stand it any longer and looked up. There was something unspeakably vicious, cruel and triumphant in the smile she flashed him back. He wondered if that had always been there, that cruelty, hiding behind the mask of sweetness she had put on to ensnare him. He hated her; five years romanticising her and punishing himself had honed his readiness to hate her into a fine point and he felt it now inside him ready to shoot out and destroy her again.

But he could not move. She was still looking at him thoughtfully, as though were an interesting new kind of bug and she might put a foot out any moment and crush him.

“I asked you a question,” she said coolly, splintering the little branch she was holding in her hands into tiny snapping pieces, the flecks of wood falling onto the marble tile. She could not make him speak to her, that at least he determined. He did not flinch from her gaze but his lips remained tightly shut.

“Stubborn,” she remarked mildly – “I should have you whipped,” the smile played moth – like in the corner of her mouth.

“Yes,” she replied as though he had actually spoken the objection that has risen into his mouth out loud – “Believe me. I would.” She watched him for a moment as though calculating, before turning her back on him –

“No I don’t think so,” she said airily, as though in answer to her own internal debate and she waved a hand at the guards dismissively – “Put him away, I’ll send for him later. And saddle my horse –” she directed this to her own nearest servant – “I’m going for a ride.”

Once again he found himself dragged onto his feet, prodded and pushed first inside and then down a flight of stairs to a room that was no more than a glorified cell, though he found himself caring less about the surroundings than trying to clear his own head. Five years. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t. But he had to. What choice did he have? His mind was a mess with it – she was supposed to have been sent back to Vere as a slave, much as he had destroyed himself thinking about that, he found himself wanting her in her current position almost less. Perhaps. He did not know any more. It could hardly matter what he wanted; in this position he did not imagine he would have any choice in what was done with him. What _was_ she planning? What was she thinking? He tried to imagine how he would feel if he was her. He could not, he did not imagine he knew her at all, any more than he knew himself, his own heart (she was himself, his heart, his – he had to stop this, _had to)._

It was hard to judge the passage of time in confinement and solitude but he could see from his slit of a window that it was dark when he next heard a noise outside his door and he was being led again, up the stairs and through the house. It was elegance and opulence this place, if the circumstances had been otherwise he might have been able to admire it. They stopped outside a door in the upstairs corridor, the guards knocked and her voice replied a lazy _come in._

“Untie him and leave us,” she said, turning from a desk beneath the window. He swallowed hard, she was beautiful in the candlelight, so many candles in here that it was almost bright, the flames flickering, throwing specks of red in amongst the folds of her dress, gold her eyes that seemed black in this light. Loathing uncoiled like a snake in his belly, utter detestation for this thing who looked so like the woman he had loved but was in truth just a parody of all she had pretended to be. For a brief, sharp moment he regretted ever cutting her down, wished he could finish what was started and strangle her before she could speak another word like poison from those lips. He could see himself wrapping his hands around her throat, her struggles and her heart beating furiously against his chest, he could have drowned in her death, lost himself inside it.

“Try anything,” she said and he imploded quietly, as though she could see right into him – “And I’ll have you flogged to death and returned to the regent. I should do that anyway. Wait just outside the door,” she said this over his head to the guards who melted away in silence.

“One move,” she addressed him again – “That I did not specifically authorise you to make and I _will_ call them back in and christen the whipping post in the gardens. Do you care to test my resolve?”

He tried not to look away, and their eyes locked in silent deadly combat for too long. Long enough for too much to pass between them; he could feel the hate and hurt rolling off him in burning waves. He hoped it pierced her. In return her gaze was icy, her eyes revealing nothing, as though they were merely beautiful pieces of glass in the mask of her face. Her ice was freezing his flame. He dropped his gaze.

“Good,” she nodded, satisfied “Now attend me.”

He was slow to understand her, to grasp her meaning, she stood poised, one arm held out impatiently, fingers curled upwards in an expectant almost regal gesture.  She held shadows and candlelight flickering between her fingers. All he could do was stare.

“Am I to wait on the modesty of a slave?” She snapped it coolly, one eyebrow raised – “ _Attend me.”_

This time he understood that she really did intend for him to unlace her. He thought about running, about flatly refusing, about speaking to her, screaming at her, trying to kill her as he had imagined. He thought about the guards just outside and the threats he had no doubt she would not hesitate to carry out and he took a step forward, closing the gap between them, dropping his gaze to her offered wrist. He did not dare to catch her eye again but could feel her looking at him appraisingly and reached for the laces bunched at her wrist with uncertain hands. She flexed her fingers impatiently. He gave a tentative tug, his eyes following the run of eyelets leading all the way up her inner arm and around to the shoulder where they met a trail of fastenings running from her neck to the small of her back. She was warm but unmoving and he could smell her now – not just the familiar scent of jasmine but the smell of her skin and hair, horrifically, unbearably familiar. He remembered what that smell had always done to him, what her very presence could not help but do. He swallowed hard and let the laces fall from their intricate bow, so long they went almost to the floor, bright green silk threads spilling between his fingers. They were so tightly laced he had to draw each lace through one by one and at this length it felt like a task that would take him all night. When the first two eyelets came free he could feel the skin at her wrist beneath his fingers, see the veins there, feel her pulse fluttering like a little bird beneath the skin. He was suddenly painfully aware of how sparingly he was dressed and of how tightly, stiffly laced in she was. He ran his thumb over the hollow of her wrist. He did not mean to. She was achingly soft. The serpent in his belly uncoiled further, changing form just enough to wreck him. She gave a sharp, hissed intake of breath and he felt her left hand clamp tight around his wrist, removing his fingers from her skin. She twisted his hand back painfully. He met her eyes; they were jagged, narrowed and sharp as a cat’s, her lips twitched before she fought down whatever had risen in her in response.

“Carry on,” she snarled. He did. It was agonisingly frustrating work, her laces parting, revealing the pale skin of her arm inch by inch. He wanted to run his fingers down that growing triangle of skin, wanted with the most irrational part of him to kiss her, taste her, run his tongue up the inside her arm, devour her bit by bit rather than have to simply expose her. When he reached her shoulder and she coolly held out her left arm he groaned just a fractional part audibly and, having unlaced her at the wrist tried to pull apart the fabric, it gave a little, he almost exhaled – he could make this quicker but –

“No,” she said. Just that, _no._ He felt sure now that this was hell and this was his eternal punishment. Finally she presented her back to him, though there was nothing trusting in it, nothing acquiescent in the dip of her head, it was an order like everything else. She shifted her hair to fall over her shoulder, displaying the lacings looped at the back of her neck. It was disgustingly unbearable to be this close, feel her hair tickle his face, reach for the throat he wanted to crush in what felt like to him such an intimate act. In Akielos it would have been. In Vere the act of unlacing was simply another painful ritual to keep pets in their place. Everything in her stance told him to remember this. The laces were wider here, easier in a way but at the same time more physical somehow, forcing him to brush against her with every pull. He was appalled to find his body reacting to this, appalled by how easily it betrayed him. He tried to angle himself away from her but that only made her smirk out a sneering little laugh.

“It’s been a long five years,” she remarked quietly. He felt himself harden with hatred and said nothing. He paused when the collar of her dress folded away to reveal her throat, froze. She felt it and he could feel a brief second of her impatience and then –

“But of course,” she murmured. “You never stayed to see it”. She raised her chin, baring her throat to him, but turning her head away so he could not see her face. He thought he caught her biting her lip. He did not want to look. He understood though that she was making him and that this punishment at least he deserved. His fingers shook, the laces still running over his hands.

“Don’t _touch,”_ she hissed, pre-empting him. He wanted to, wanted to brush away the darkness as though it was nothing more than soot on her skin, marring the perfect pale cream of her. He felt as though he might cry and swallowed it, chest tight. As soon as she relaxed, or appeared to relax, she tapped her foot impatiently and he knew better than not to continue, his hands working their way down her back until her bodice came away in his hands like cracking apart a carapace. His hands lingered on the small of her back, just above the laces bunched at the back of her skirt, anticipating her.

“Go on,” she said and he did. She was emerging, pale as snow beneath his hands, still corseted even beneath her exoskeleton. He wondered how she breathed. Perhaps she did not need to, he felt bitterly as though that might explain a lot. But she was softer without this armour, at least in appearance, he could see her bosom rise and fall above her corset, feel the soft flesh of her arm when he leaned in too close. The serpent had uncoiled inside him and his cock was achingly hard without his urge to kill her having lessened in the slightest. He was all but shaking with confusion and want, though he could not have said what it was he wanted most.

She stepped out of her skirts as though they were bricks of a tower she had been walled up inside and walked around him to sit on the side of the bed. He watched as though spellbound as she pulled her underskirts, a frothy cloud of white, up above her knees, her boots, as he had guessed running all the way to her thigh, black and shiny with wicked toes. She looked at him expectantly. He died inside, tried not to drink in the sight of her. Tried not to think about throwing her back onto the bed, of how she would feel beneath him, sure he could get inside her before she had time to call for the guards. Her eyes flicked from him to the floor at her feet and he followed her gaze like a dog, ashamed.

He stared at her boots for a long time, trying to work them out, and she allowed this, seemingly amused to find him so easily on his knees at her feet. He unsnapped the buckles first before starting on the black cords of her boots. He laid the first aside, overcome with the urge to kiss her feet, all the way up to the knee. He closed his eyes and did the second. He sat for a long time, looking down, his body remembering more than his mind would wish, wondering what stopped him from burying his head between her thighs, he could almost smell her, almost believe she would want it. His fingers strayed tentatively up the inside of her leg until he _did_ feel her breathing quicken. She stood up suddenly, almost kicking him aside.

“Don’t be presumptuous,” she said stiffly, turning and stepping away from him. This time he caught her wrist as she passed him, felt her, solid and soft, fluttering pulse beneath his palm, turning her savagely to face him –

“ _Too late,”_ he growled, voice rough, choking on everything he wanted to do and say, only then remembering that he had not meant to speak at all. For a brief and shining moment he saw something like fear flicker in her eyes before she cried out, cool as ever –

“Guards!” and the door opened instantly. He cursed himself silently for his stupidity, he should not have imagined for a moment that she was in any way less armoured for the removal of mere clothes, she had built her walls up far more cleverly than that. He should not even have wanted to try and break through. She was right, he _was_ presumptuous, as foolish and naïve as he had ever been. He had allowed himself to get the most ridiculous idea of where this might have been going and could not have been more wrong. He saw her smile, triumphantly at the startled look he must have had, the shock and – ridiculously – betrayal – and he realised she had been waiting for him to do something like this all along.

“Take him away,” she ordered, still smiling, impervious to her state of undress and the guards – Take him away and punish him. This one is insolent and dangerous and we’re done here.”

He stared at her helplessly as they dragged him out roughly, her angelic white and her smiling face and the flames behind her like a flicker of hell and he wanted her dead and he wanted to bury himself inside her and he wanted the past back and he wanted and wanted and wanted.

__x__

**Hope it was worth the wait! promise I will be going back and doing bits of this from milady’s pov in the next chapter! I don’t think it’s ever taken me this long to get a character not even fully undressed so….yay? :-)**


	4. Chapter 4

 

. **4.**

She exhaled so hard that she saw some of the candle flames flutter in her breath. When she sat back on the side of the bed, her chest heaved as though something was fighting to get out of there. As though she had caged a wild animal within the ribs and it was tearing at bars. She felt her breath whistle past her lips, drawing it quickly in as though she had run for a long way without rest.

Or just been cut down all over again. She had not forgotten what that felt like.

She wondered if she had been wrong, if she had been unwise to test herself like this, if it had been too soon. She spat at herself for the weakness; it had not been wrong. She was victorious here; she had him exactly where she wanted him. She wondered if she should be more considerate of her own feelings at least but that was ridiculous since she had no feelings to be considerate of in this matter. She had exposed nothing more than skin and he had played right into her hands. She was not even sure why her chest felt so tight, why she was breathing as though something had agitated her. It had _not._

Her mind replayed everything that had happened since he had arrived quickly and efficiently, like skimming through a book. She wished she had _known_ it would be him, she could have delighted in the idea, planned her moves, done everything with more precision and forethought, built up her walls more strongly if she had needed to. She wondered now why, in all this time, she had never thought she would not see him again, never even wanted it however much she hated him, tried not to even think of him. Still, for the most part she was pleased, she had passed any test there might have been for herself, she knew her own strength, her ability and better still she knew his; or his lack of it. 

It occurred to her that a large amount of any thought she _had_ spared him over the years had been focused on killing him. She could do that, she realised; it was in her grasp. She could order him dead not just punished – on a whim if she so desired - but it no longer seemed like the best revenge, the most satisfying conclusion. A smile of an idea tugged at the corners of her mouth. She pressed her lips together tightly and stood up, picking up a dressing gown from the end of the bed. Like everything in this country it was heavy and thick, the sleeves tight up to the elbow and then spilling down all the way to the floor in dark points. She left the candles burning and slipped out into the corridor.

She caught up with the guards just outside the door to the cell, resisted the urge to look in, despised her foolish moment of curiosity and gave them their new orders – to do nothing for now, delaying punishment until further notice and, smiling to herself, she continued down to the underground bath house.

It was a relatively small heated space, the ceilings low, flickering black and gold from the shadows and candlelight playing up the walls and over the scooping ceiling, just the one large bath dug into the floor in between the pillars and a smaller, cold bath to the far side. It would be hot today, with nobody down here to cool the water or assist her. She found herself not entirely caring. She shrugged the gown onto the floor, fought her way out of the corsetry herself. She should have made _him_ do this, she grumbled internally, both to save her the trouble and exacerbate his reaction. She knew, to her regret, that she could not have done this, that she might, however scathing of the fact she was- have reacted too much herself in turn.

The water, as she stepped slowly in, was hot, almost too hot, she found herself hissing and tensing at the almost unbearable lap of it. But it was good, it drew the shudders out of her and crept through to her bones. She was surprised to find there was so much shuddering in her. And _why,_ she thought, slipping in up to her neck, sighing and stretching as though in fresh clean sheets, why should she react? What was the – the _slave_ to her now beyond a pet to toy with?

Wrong answers to the question rose unbidden with the steam rising from the waters. She remembered silvery nights in the meadows in Aegina, warm summer nights but with a breeze like crystal on the air. The rippling in the grass and laughter that sounded like it came from another girl but there was no other girl there; it must have been her. She remembered that girl’s tremulous fear, the sound of her own heartbeat loud in her ears, the sensation of falling as though it were a real physical thing, the knowledge that he would catch her, that he would not let her come to harm, not ever, ever again. His arms held her tight in the grass and she could smell the warm muskiness of him and the pollen and the night air around them. She remembered that sweet tender terror – of not knowing what to do with such tingling musical sensations, of his fingers playing her like an instrument, eking out tunes she did not know she could produce and feeling as innocent as he thought that she was, as breakable and capable of scattering on those winds . She had never meant to let anyone get that close, close enough to be able to hurt her, she had never been so convinced that here was someone who might _not._ She could feel his promises whispered into the pale perfection of her throat, feel her smile hum at her ears and when he was inside her she could feel her palms sing as she clutched at the ground for purchase and the grass tore away in her hands and giving her body felt like something relevant for the first time and she had dared to think _If I gave you my heart as well you might treat it this tenderly_ hardly aware that she had given it already. She could hear the heart hammering, the breathing steady, a girl’s voice saying _promise me – promise me you’ll never let anything come between us,_ she could hear it all, echoing around the walls of the bath house and the lie he gave her in return ricocheted hard on the echo’s back – _I promise._

She groaned out loud, shook her head, worked out the last of the plaits she had been unravelling in her fingers, scattering hairpins to the floor and into the water and dipped her head below the surface to drown the memories that surely belonged to somebody else. She stayed under the water for as long as she could, testing herself, reaching out towards the point of panic and resurfacing when she reached it gasping and relieved and enjoying the relief, the ability to breathe, too much. She swam the short distance to the ledge on the other side where the soaps and oils were kept, letting herself freefall in the water as she washed, enjoying the sensations of soap and weightlessness. She washed repeatedly as though she could clean memory out of her skin, draw him out of her pores like a disease infecting her, washing his touch, his closeness from her body, his breath from her skin, wondering where the tiny feeling of regret came from that rose up like a bubble she quickly popped. She dipped below the water again, courting breathlessness and fear, reassuring herself repeatedly that she could beat it, that she was free.

She rose up out of the hot water heavily, dripping water across the stone and onto her clothes, uncaring. She slipped quickly into the colder bath, gasping at the startling refreshing cold, watching her hair swirl in the water around her, taking a complex delight in her shape and beauty. She felt otherworldly down here in the steam and water and flickering light, like a mermaid, a strange subterranean creature, a demon if he wanted – anything other than human. She detached herself from her body as easily as she revelled in the sensations she could enjoy.

She thought it all over again, as she reclined in the cool, almost uncomfortable water that was so much more conducive to sensible logical thought. She gathered together what she knew now and lined it up as information on how to progress, putting her own irrelevant feelings aside as the irritation they were. She knew _him,_ she suspected, far better than he knew her. She knew that physical punishment alone would not break him the way the most vengeful part of her still wanted to see him broken. She knew that he was furious at the position he now found himself, that he would like to hurt her, that he hated her as certainly as she hated him. That was fine. She knew too that he wanted her. He had always wanted her. She suspected that he had not expected it to last, that he did not want to want her any more, that the years and drink and bitterness had twisted what had been such a pure simple, insatiable desire into a painfully frustrated coil of lust crackling with savage potential. She tried not to feel what she felt at that thought. Tried to ignore the pulse that flickered achingly between her legs, the lust she suspected she had managed to ignore all these years far more effectively than he had done. Her fingers were sly traitors to her better judgement, slipping between her legs to the centre of this newly awoken ache, stroking the throbbing flesh that the water did nothing to cool.

She thought about the hot rage in his eyes, the rasp of his voice when he had spoken to her. She had seen everything he was imagining when he took hold of her wrist, heard it in that growl and her breathing came out in shudders she could not control. She hated him. She was determined to make him suffer more than ever for this. Her clit felt slick beneath her fingers with a wetness that was not the water. She thought about holding herself back, not letting herself do this. She could not force her fingers to stop, felt half violated by her own desire, imagined the agony of stopping and rubbed the ache furiously to the thought of his thwarted desire. Her head was hot, spinning and ringing when she came, releasing a breath that was almost a shriek to echo around the dome. She sighed and stretched and smiled, dipping her head below the cool silk water to relieve the heat, every last bit of it washing away in a satisfied slide. She thought about being denied such satisfaction, about what he might be feeling now. It occurred to her how awful it would be to have the world witness such frustration, such visible emotion. He hated his feelings now; that much was obvious, had no doubt spent all this time trying to crush them beneath the mastery of more physical arts. He would doubtless hate it even more if the world were to witness them in the most humiliating manner possible. She thought of the upcoming Midsummer festivities to which she, with all the rest of the local nobility, had already been invited at the palace at Arles and heard herself actually giggle as her plan began to fall into place.

She thought about her initial intention, the simple plan to flog him half to death as she had threatened. As she dried herself off she shook her head at her foolish simplicity. He could shrug of a flogging like she could shrug off the world when she needed to. No; her new plan was far better, he would not recover from this so easily.

She found herself humming dreamily through smiling lips all the way back to her bed chamber.

__x__

**Belated thanks to the lovely _Charis_ for helping me design Athos’s paint details in the last chapter and then more thanks for this chapter for sanity checking and dealing with me wailing at length about whether or not to flog Athos. Especial thanks for putting the _very_ evil idea into my head as to what Milady actually _is_ going to do to him, hopefully some inkling can be gained from this and otherwise will be revealed in the next chapter! *cackles and skips off doing a dance of evil* :-)**

**As ever thanks to my patient and delightful (I was going to say delicious but ok) beta _Zedrobber_ for everything and illustrations that may continue to be found on tumblr! Y’all are bad enabling peoples and I hate you about as much as Milady hates Athos. Good day. :-) **


	5. Chapter 5

 

**5.**

“A _male_ slave?” Ninon’s eyebrows rose almost alarmingly – “You can’t be serious! And you really mean to present him at the royal court?”

“Trust me –” her smile felt wicked, secretive, even to her – “It will be worth it even if it does scandalise just a little. I have no reputation to ruin after all, and besides I could hardly decline a gift from the Regent of Akielos; it would have been considered an act of near political aggression. At least this way I will avoid any hint that I have tried to hide a move that Rochefort in his deviousness has forced upon me.”

Ninon nodded slowly, taking this in. She was sat in a carved chair in the ornate back gardens whilst Milady reclined across a chaise – longue she had had the girls bring out into the courtyard. With only two days before they left for Arles, she had gathered her nearest neighbours to her that they might all travel together; a decision that had suited them all and herself in particular for reasons she was not quite ready to disclose. Belgard was expected on the hour and in the meantime she had only to play her first hand and pretend that she enjoyed the company of the Comtessa de Larroque.

“Well rather you than me, that’s all I can say,” Ninon said – “I don’t keep a single man about the place and I fully intend to keep it that way.” She petted the shining head of her pretty new favourite as she spoke and the girl smiled up at her in confident adoration, curled on cushions at her feet like a cat. Milady restrained the urge to roll her eyes. Ninon’s tedious displays of arrogant independence were of no interest to her. She wondered what the woman would think if she knew how hard she herself had had to fight for even the degree of independence she had achieved herself – of what it could really mean to be a woman and fight for such rights in this country.

“My Lady, the Comte de Belgard and his attendants.” Celine bobbed a flushed courtesy from the doorway and stood back to let the attendant party in. Milady raked them over with her eyes, without stirring from the chaise longue – she had only known the new count previously by reputation and was keen to take his measure before speaking a word. He was, she observed, an imposingly large man – _attractive,_ she might also almost have said - with a benign, steady countenance and a curiously uncomfortable look at appearing in this state, and perhaps – she deduced – with his attire. Despite the stiffness and the lacings already required he had chosen to take an even more ornate approach, wearing a high collar studded with copper and flecks of pyrite, the lower half of the jacket ornately embossed with an ornate floral pattern, containing hints of wildlife amongst the leaves. The tightly laced boots came up to his knees and he had thrown a maroon half cloak over one shoulder even in spite of the heat. He wore it all with a swagger that might have been ridiculous on anyone else but appeared on him simply jaunty and right.

“My lady,” he offered her a bright toothy smile of remarkable disingenuousness, dropping easily onto one knee to kiss her hand when she did not rise – “A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Monsieur le Comte – please –” she waved to the available stone benches for seating.

“Porthos please – ” he grimaced pleasantly – “Still haven’t got used to the whole _Comte de Belgard_ thing you know.”

“Porthos then,” she nodded, smiling. This one, she thought, would be an absolute breeze to bend her way around.

“If I might –” Porthos looked around with a faint trace of anxiety. “If you would allow me the honour to present my boy to you – Aramis, come over here.”

A sideways glance told her that Ninon’s eyebrow had first shot up at the impropriety of a pet being introduced almost as though on equal footing to a nobleman and then quickly lowered again as she observed the young man. He _was,_ Milady supposed, unlike any pet she had ever seen, beautifully groomed and intricately painted, gold flowers on the shoulders and upper chest beautifully complementing the loose cream fabric, the flowers edged in warm brown to complement his master. Somehow, incredibly, the pair of them went together perfectly. The pet had the brightest eyes she had seen in a servant and a smile that was at once warm and friendly and simultaneously bordering on cocksure and above his position. Still he took a cushion at his master’s feet just as Fleur had done for Ninon. They none of them held more than passing interest to her, and for a moment there was an awkward silence during which everyone wondered who would be the first to speak.

Surprisingly – shockingly, according to the look on Ninon’s face – it was Aramis.

“So we’ve heard some rather interesting rumours about your own latest acquisition, my Lady; may one inquire as to the truth of them?”

She eyed the young man with faint amusement.

“Yes,” she said, smiling wryly, a yawn in her voice – “yes, I suppose it is time. Bring him out.” She clicked her fingers at one of the guards, curious to see how this would play, noting the untouched cushions on the floor beneath her in stark contrast to the pets seated beside the others. She wondered how much he _could_ be brought to heel and suspected that if not yet it would not be long before he was.

They led him out by the chain she had insisted be fitted to the collar and listened with pleased amusement to hear how he had rebelled against it. She wondered how much more he would rebel when his next chain was fitted and smirked both at that and the barely muffled gasp of shock from Ninon at so inappropriate a slave. For herself, she wondered what was really more inappropriate – the humiliation of so much paint upon a slave so utterly lacking in delicacy or the expression that accompanied it. She had ordered some changes to his design since that first meeting and his collars and cuffs were now engraved with the delicate swirl of flowers that formed her own signature and she had increased the black swirls of paint around his throat to make them uglier and more obvious, making a point he had not failed to take. His eyes were a blaze of fury and objection, his nostrils visibly flaring with anger and frustration. She could hardly wait for all of his shortcomings and more to fall beneath the scrutiny of the royal court. At her beckoning they handed her the chain and she could almost feel the fight within him at forcing himself _not_ to fight it.  

“Sit,” she commanded lightly at first. She saw his hands ball, his lips thin and his eyes trying to take her down with him. She gave the chain a sharp tug. He narrowed his eyes – she knew that look – she had worn it herself when surveying the newcomers – and after a battle she could almost feel in her own chest he went grudgingly to his knees on the cushions. She felt the tightness in her own chest, as though they were connected, heart to heart, by the chain in her hand. He glared back at her steadily, his eyes burning to bore holes through her, without, she realised, really seeing her. She understood it with a grim satisfaction, knowing well enough herself how to look without seeing.

“So striking,” Ninon remarked when she had regained her composure. “So new to the role I think, and utterly untrained - my dear you’ll have to fix that.”

“Oh” she replied, smiling sweetly down at him – “Oh I quite intend to.”

“Such beautiful eyes,” the countess continued musingly, too much approval – Milady thought – glinting in her own eyes. She bit back a sharp _he’s mine_ that pricked at her lips and instead just gave the chain a sharp proprietary yank.

“He doesn’t look happy,” Porthos announced disapprovingly – “I don’t think it’s right.”

Athos lowered his head beneath their commentary, staring resolutely at the ground instead of defiantly upwards. It annoyed her a little, as did the prick of such unchecked morality that Porthos seemed unafraid to voice.

“Thank you Monsieur le Comte,” she said coldly – “When I wish for your opinion, I’ll be sure to ask.”

After a brief, faintly awkward pause, the conversation turned to other trivialities until the servants came to announce that their carriages were ready; the masters were to go in one and the pets, with, after some insistent negotiating on Porthos’s part, the exception of Aramis – were to go in the other. Porthos waited until the courtyard had almost emptied, catching Milady by the arm as she rose to follow.

“Here,” he said, without preliminary or – she observed – propriety. “I want to talk to you”. She raised an eyebrow, looking around quickly to check that there were servants within shouting distance, faintly alarmed by the knowledge that he was stronger than she was but more so by the lowered tone of voice. She shook his hand off her arm and crossed her arms across her chest defensively.

“Yes?”

He looked at her with what looked like a worried look in his eyes.

“Straight to the point then.” He bit his lip – “Do you really mean to display that slave at the royal court?”

“No, I was lying to you all,” she said too quickly, shook her head and sighed – “Yes. I said so, didn’t I? Are you going to try and tell me how wrong it is again?”

“Already did that,” Porthos scratched his head, looking down – “Just – I’ll ignore what I think about that for a bit. I’ll try. But are you sure it’s safe? Do you want to attract that kind of attention to yourself?”

“Actually I was thinking of attracting it to _him.”_

“But you – ugh – I’m saying this all wrong – your position at court – it’s –”

“What do you know about that?” she said sharply.

“They don’t know do they? Where you came from – who you were, it’s –”

She felt cold in the heat.

“I grew up there too,” he said, whispering – “The Beggar’s Court at Aquitart. Everyone remembers The Magpie.”

It was a reflex, almost before she could think the dagger hidden in the lacings of her sleeve was out and turned upon him, her body tensing for a fight.

 

“If you _dare –”_ she hissed, bristling until she could feel herself spikey and shivering with it, knife pointed upwards beneath his neck quick as a flash “- if you mean to tell or imply _anything –”_

“Woah there,” the big man said, eyeing the knife in her hand and holding up his hands – “Woah woah woah – I wasn’t saying – I didn’t mean anything by it - I just – it just came out, ‘cause I was there y’know – I remember.”

“And _that’s_ not supposed to imply a threat?” she relaxed only fractionally and all of it was a response to the genuine warmth of his voice.

“No!”

“What then?”

“Look I just wanna help you – I – honour amongst thieves remember?”

She bared her teeth in a silent hiss, eyes narrow and suspicious.

“ _Why?”_

“Why what?”

“Why would you _just want to help me?”_

“Does there need to be a reason?”

“In my experience,” she nodded. “What do you want?”

“I _told_ you. I knew you as soon as I saw you. I respected you, we all did. Fucking legend you were. And you tried to help me, don’t you remember?”

“No.”

She squinted at him. She did not think she did remember, though there _was_ something familiar in his voice, his eyes too – she frowned, childhood memories were hard to dredge up and a thing she generally avoided.

“No. Well I don’t suppose I was more than seven at the time. You were maybe – I don’t know, the same?”

She looked at him and said nothing, in truth she had no real firm idea as to her age but she was far from going to tell him that.

“Anyway, yeah, you may have saved my life, what was it you said? _Most terrible pickpocket you ever met?”_

She blinks rapidly and remembers, like a light coming on.

_She had been perched on a low rooftop watching the street, bright eyed and alert, unseen in the middle of the busy street. She could tell what the boy was up to; she had been watching his progress all the way down the thoroughfare, he was stalking a target and he was doing it terribly. She was amusing herself watching him, the large lumbering boy trying to make himself small, trying to fit into the shadows, to make himself invisible, to slip through the human stream like a wind. She would have done it minutes ago herself and shrank back into a wall and been gone. It was not even a very good choice of target, a nervous looking man of moderate means who would jump and catch the boy as soon as he came into contact._

_She was barefoot, toes curled around the gutter like claws, confident in her purchase on the rooftop. It had been raining and her feet were cold but it was better like this anyway even if she had owned shoes, she was quiet as the wind, quick as cat and hunched like a bird on a branch, her skirts like feathers and her bare arms thin as winter branches. She hated the cold, nibbled a chestnut slowly to keep it to warm her fingers and watched the boy in the street grinning and shaking her head, sighing noiselessly and cursing her better nature when she dropped down onto the cobblestones in front of him._

_“You’re never going to sneak up on someone going like that,” she announced. He jumped so hard he almost fell back, looking around comically to try and see where she had come from._

_“Get along. I’m busy,” he grumbled with an attempt at furtive that made her grin wider._

_“Busy getting yourself caught,” she replied promptly “And hanged,” she added. He narrowed his eyes._

_“You could see what I was doing?”_

_“All the way up the street.”_

_“I was that obvious?”_

_“Only a lot.” He looked at her with widening eyes._

_“You’re The Magpie.”_

_“And you’re the worst thief I’ve ever seen.” She rolled her eyes “Stand there.” She pointed to a corner by the wall – “Watch me.” He watched. A minute later she was back with the man’s purse – “Now come on –” she pulled him by the arm – “Slink, don’t run. If you run people see and they come after you whether you’ve stolen anything or not.”_

_She showed him how to slink. It took the large part of the afternoon, at the end of the day he felt almost as though he had made a friend._

_“Can I have that purse then?” he asked in the dusk._

_“No” she smirked – “I got it.”_

_“Yeah – but he was_ my _target.”_

_“Oh, alright.” She took the purse out of the lining in her thin bodice, emptied the coins into her pocket and gave him the purse – “There you go.” She grinned._

_“Hey –” he began, glaring down at the empty purse but when he looked up again she was gone, quicker than the shadows fell around them._

**“** So now what then?” she said – “You want to return the favour?” Her lip curled as she said it, ready to despise the offer of assistance she was sure she did not need.

“Something like that.”

“I’m not going to change my plans on any account,” she said stubbornly – “But as you’re here I can’t get rid of you and if you feel you have to look out for me I can’t stop you. But you’ll call me Milady.”

“And you’ll call me Porthos,” he nodded. “None of this _Monsieur le Comte”_

“Fine,” she nodded, making it sound angrier than she felt. To her amusement he put out his hand for her to shake. She rolled her eyes but she shook his hand. When she pulled her hand away there was a purse pressed into her palm. She stared at it in amazement, unable to believe he would keep it so long. He laughed when she opened her mouth to say so, but in the end all she said was –

“You improved.”

“I had a good teacher.”

And then Ninon was calling them over to the carriages and her smile came and went quicker than the shadows that started to fall around them.

__x__

**Ok I know,. I’m sorry there wasn’t so much Athos in this chapter but I promise he’ll be back taking the pov again in the next one. Turns out I love Porthos way more than I even knew already. So. :-)**


	6. Chapter 6

**6.**

He spent the first day alone in an agony of uncertainty and confusion. Remembering her previous comment, he expected at any moment to be dragged out to the whipping post she had threatened, and torn half to pieces for his presumption and – more likely – his intent. He felt as though he were made of glass and she could see right through him, as though she could see every awful thing he had thought as he knelt before her more naked than she was, as though he was the one stripped bare, his sickness on display to the world.

As the night passed and the day went on and nothing happened he first started to become less worried and then began to fall into a pit of anxiety far greater. He could have stood a flogging. That she had not done it could mean only that she had something worse in mind. The time passing meant that she was thinking, planning, _plotting_ something and that made him more uneasy than ever. He started to wish she _would_ just flog him, rather than leaving him like that. He wondered if it was a part of her plan.

Somewhere in the mess he realised that she must never have had any intention _not_ to punish him. That he had had this coming – whatever it was going to be – in her mind from the day he both tried to kill her and then sent her away. Any reason she might now find for any display of punishment was just a façade for everything she had not forgiven him for. He felt the self – pity stronger than ever, and worse than ever, as this was the first time he had faced it without drink. He was forced, without her having to say a word, to think about what he had done. As if she could have imagined he had not thought about it every day for five years.

What _had_ he done? Nothing, the stubborn part of his mind said, that he ought to be punished for. He had been upholding the law, doing the right thing even though it hurt him to do so. He sometimes imagined his sense of hurt could be punishment enough, sometimes felt himself drowning in disgust at ever thinking it could be so. He heard the arguments sling back and forth, beating against his skull until he felt torn in two with it – _she is a liar and a murderer!- it’s not criminal to lie and you never listened to why she did it, never even let her explain – she would only have lied to you! Like she lied when she said she loved you, like she lied about everything – it’s not a crime to lie, you don’t kill someone because they hurt your feelings – remember the way she looked at you, how you felt then, remember even that was a lie –_

That was the worst of it, replaying every moment of their happiness, of the things they had said and whispered and promised, of the way she had kissed him and offered herself as though she was innocent of anyone else’s touch, how proud he had felt to know that this beautiful perfect creature was his and had only ever been his. But – _You don’t kill someone because they hurt your feelings – but I didn’t kill her. In the end I cut her down – and you didn’t even look at her! You banished her that same hour, turned her back into the very thing you were punishing her for being –_

In the end regret and blame always won out over justice and righteousness. He had behaved inexcusably and his justifications just made him all the more monstrous. Knowing that he had earned any revenge she might now see fit to take did not make him feel better. If he were not so angry about everything he might have simply accepted it, taken it as his due, made all of this his atonement. If she had not made him so angry. If she were not so foul, such a parody of the woman he had loved, if, worst of all, he could not see half a glimpse of that girl in her still, if and if only he did not feel that overarching urge to be near her even now, to touch her, taste her, hear her voice and live, as he had wanted to from the first – in the corner of her smile. For all of this he could almost have killed her again.

She left him wondering for three days and on the morning of the third his guards took him out again. It almost would have been a relief from tedium if they had not been such brutes.

“Morning sunshine” the larger one grinned – “Time to make you pretty again. Mistress’s orders.”

“You can tell the mistress to go fuck herself,” his voice came out in a rasp from under use and earned him a clout around the head.

“Tell her yourself,” the man grinned – “We’ll enjoy having something to thump.”

Athos spat as they hauled him down the corridor –

“If you think I’m talking to that lying – scheming - ice cold bitch –” each invective earned him another clout. He shook his head to clear it but did not go on.

“Anything else?” The guard grinned.

“Yes. You can repeat all that to her and then go fuck yourself with her.”

The final clout left his ears ringing. He wanted to laugh. It was a relief to get hit after so long doing nothing but torture himself and worry and he could feel the guard’s frustration at not being really able to let rip. He had learned something too – that she did not want him hurt like this – in so simple a manner. He could tell from the man’s eyes that left to his own devices he would have had him on the floor by now. So someone had left instructions he not be bruised or otherwise hurt and there was only one person around to give orders here. It was interesting, and not entirely comforting.

He was washed like a dog and this time oiled thoroughly up to every last orifice and _this_ he did fight, for what little good it did him. When they began to reapply the paint he felt the simmer of concern in his belly rise to a pounding in the chest. The painting was slow and seemed to take forever around his neck, he could half see when he looked down, thought he pushed his jaw up again impatiently. He could feel what they were up to all the same and processing her meaning he could feel the brush strokes upon his throat unbearably, like insects crawling cross his skin. She might just as well have been talking to him, whispering her intent, hissing _look, now you match me!_ The voice he could not even hear grated in his ears until he wondered why he had ever cut her down.

Whilst he waited for them to take him wherever they meant to take him he contemplated his options hard. He could fight easily enough, break away, run perhaps, even get some distance before they caught him again. She would not let him get away he knew that. But every urge in him said to fight, it said to kill his captor and bid for freedom. But he also felt sick at the thought of killing her, as though some foul chemical flooded him each time the idea came to him. The expenditure of energy it would take to get a short distance away before they caught him would be a waste. Besides where would he go? His lands were taken and his life and not been his own since he met her, taken with her when she went. Even through all the hate he felt a painful flicker of hope when he looked at her, hope that he could maybe wrest that life back from whatever ice she had entombed it in. He imagined her like a witch with his heart on a string like a garlic bulb hung over her bed. He could see her sinking her teeth into it, nibbling away but never quite devouring the whole thing. Hating her was all he had, so strong he was not even sure he wanted to escape her and let go of it.

So he let them lead him and when she made him sit he thought about how and when best to pick his fights and he sat, burning up inside, his innards doused in sweet oily jasmine and set alight to burn all the way up through him to his eyes. He was almost sure that she could see it flame.

The journey was not long, but it was awkward; he found himself sat in silence the whole way trying not to make eye contact with the only other pet in his carriage, the girl with the very large eyes that she struggled to keep off him. Only when he did look up and catch her looking at him did she seem to find it possible to look away. He did not want to think about how he looked or the vague apprehension he could see in her eyes. He only knew, looking at her, that he would never be a pet like that, happy and content in servitude, gazing with adoration at a caring mistress. He was sure he was not made to kneel to anyone, let alone enjoy it as she seemed to. Only when the carriage began to slow down for the drive up though the palace grounds did she venture to speak to him.

“It doesn’t _define_ you, you know,” she said out of nowhere. He looked up quizzically but did not reply.

“Being a pet. It’s what you do, not who you are. You can be free in your heart and still be tied to someone. That’s just love. It doesn’t _have_ to be awful.”

He grunted and looked away from her out the window sullenly. The palace was appearing through the trees and lower shrubs, everything laid out in neat formal patterns, curling ribbons of pathways and glittering fountains and the palace itself spired silver glittering in the sun, banners flying.

“We’re here!” Fleur announced, un-necessarily, looking out the window as he did, face glowing with excitement. The carriage came to a halt in the castle driveway and one of his all too familiar guards opened the door and ushered them out. Fleur scurried straight to her mistress who was emerging from the front carriage and he saw them embrace as though the separation had been a hard one. He looked away when he saw them whispering, looking his way and laughing softly. Belgard and his pet came next, both of them laughing loudly and openly about something and jumping onto the flagstones ebulliently, Porthos stretching widely and yawning, Aramis talking to the footman as though he were a master.

She came out last, looking, compared to the others, bored and faintly irritated. He supposed the company of decent human beings was too much for her and tried not scowl as much as he knew he was scowling. He saw her talking with the guard then came over and took the end of his chain lightly, trailing it over her shoulder, indicating that he walk behind her. Aramis broke off from talking with the staff that came to greet them to inform the rest of them that they would be shown to their rooms and given time to get ready before the first evening’s entertainments and welcome banquet. She gave the chain a slight unnecessary tug and he followed mildly as the others all but gambolled up the palace steps.

They were led to a substantial set of rooms on the upper floor, lavish and excessive as everything in this country was excessive. Once again she had the guards stay just outside the door and he held himself back from shivering in fear of a repetition of last time.

But there was a servant girl in the room to help with the unlacing and instead she took the chain and looped it around the carved bedpost of the four-poster that dominated the room. A fold of the wildly draping turquoise curtain swished over his shoulder and face as she walked past him before dropping back and pooling on the floor like a great dark waterfall.

“Kneel,” she said. He did not.

“Kneel,” she said again, sounding bored. He noticed her eyes flick towards the door, he was not quite sure if it was nervousness or a threat. Either way he felt as though he had somehow won a round and knelt. She glared down at him for a moment before nodding faintly and placing herself quietly, imperiously into the servant girl’s hands to be unlaced. He remembered this; he remembered struggling beneath the sight of her emerging from her lacings like a butterfly pale and almost luminous in the candle light. It made it hard to think, made something pull tightly in his chest. He looked at the shiny wooden floor, the bed, the furnishings, anything. The floors were strewn with soft furs, white and grey and brown, everywhere, they would be caressingly soft beneath the feet if people here ever went barefoot. He tried not to look at her boots, the flash of her legs when she changed into court shoes, the cream of her thigh. The bed was exquisite, carved with flowers and leaves, the sheets and blankets opulent and the same blue green as the curtains. He imagined coming here five years ago when they were first married, of the night they might have spent in a room like this, the pleasure she would have taken in all the different sensations of fabric and fur, her smile in the moonlight and candlelight, standing by the window with the pattern of the grill falling across her face, pale moonlight in her hair, warm shadow on her arm from the candles. He could see her hair upon the pillow, a sweet sensation in his hands, her body perfect against the backdrop of turquoise, petals on beneath his lips, firm human velvet under his hands and the whole night to touch her, swim in the airstream of her breath and the chance to spend hours inside, luxuriating in her above all else, the most delicious texture out of a hundred.

But he wasn’t here with her. That girl was just a ghost and the bitch turned her gaze on him appraisingly as though she knew what he was thinking yet again. He tried not to watch the way her bosom swelled with the satisfaction of it before she was laced into tight red satin up to the neck, hard angles hiding the real shape of her enough for distance but not imagination. The skirts swept the floor in a circle of red taffeta and crisp lace. He wanted her dead in his arms, clasped tightly to his chest. Just at that moment he would have slid dagger and cock simultaneously into her and fucked her corpse when she expired.

“What do you want, Athos?” she said coolly almost wearily. He saw the servant girl behind her, trying not to watch them, hands clasped in front of her. Milady turned, following his gaze and ordered her out the room with a brushing gesture as though swatting a fly. When she closed the door behind her Milady turned back to him – “What am I to do with you?”

She unfastened his chain as she spoke and propelled him backwards onto the bed with a hand on his chest. He half expected it to come away with the imprint of her palm burnt into his flesh. She pushed him until he fell back on the bed, and, moving awkwardly in her skirts, climbed up to straddle him, holding him tight between her thighs. He could feel her muscles clench around his legs, so close, so warm, so utterly lacking in intimacy somehow even when she placed her palm upon his cock, cupping it through the fabric.

He wished he could disappoint her. Wished he was not so pathetic, so helpless and predictable in his lust, this need for her flesh that rode him, drowning out every rational objection his fast failing mind could make. It had only taken an inch of skin at her wrist to undo him every time and now he could have reached out and taken her, ripped that ridiculous frustrating dress to pieces, torn into her like the animal lurking in his chest. It was the antithesis of what he had imagined when he first surveyed the room, but all the same he could have spent the whole night lost inside her, taking her to pieces again and again, only now those pieces were not simply metaphorical, she would come apart in bloody pieces in his hands by the time he was done with her. She slipped one finger into the laces of his breeches and tugged gently and far too deftly. He groaned, closed his eyes. This could not be happening.

“Please –” he began, all stoicism falling mockingly into the bedsheets – “What are you doing? –”

“What am I doing?” the grin cut wickedly across her face, scarlet with crooked teeth – “You are not very observant.”

She pulled the lacings apart, so much softer and more pliable than her own, and ran the tips of her nails the full length of his cock. He bit his lip hard to keep from groaning, glared at her wishing she were a thousand miles away, wishing she were closer. She would not be close enough if she slipped up inside his own skin. He tried to be suspicious, to think nothing other than to ask why in hell she was doing this, but all he could think and feel and know were her fingers now lightly stroking his hurting cock. They felt like kisses. Only she could do this to him, only ever her.

“Please –” he said, it was the only thing he _could_ say – “Please –” he did not even know what he was saying it for, if he wanted her to stop or to never stop, if he wanted her gone or dead or his again as they once were. He could not have said if he needed her to kill him or save him.

“You always were an easy target,” she murmured, leaning in and flicking the tip of his cock with one smooth, practised finger. It almost unravelled him, he had no self-control with her and she was laced into her own control so stiffly so absently. He wondered what it would take to make her fall apart. His hands clutched and twisted the sheets as she leant over him until he could almost feel her heart beat through the armour. A coil of her hair slipped down to brush his face; he vaguely registered that her hair was pinned up tightly just a moment ago. Her lips brushed his cheek and he leaned into her with an instinct stronger than any other drive to kiss those lips, and she moved her hand down the full length of his cock, soft and warm and better than all his dreams, and she was cupping his balls and he was ready to spill into her hands- when she leaned forward to whisper in his ear; and he felt the cool brush of metal against his cock - that he did not even know she held in those clever pick-pocket’s hands- and he felt too late the taut cinch and snap of the cock ring fastening around the base and holding his agonising erection in place. There was a slender chain attached to it just like the one around his neck, he wondered if she really meant to lead him by it.

“Did you really think I could forget –” she whispered, breath warm against the curve of his ear – “Who you are, and what you did?”

She did not quite smile but she could not look more satisfied as she leant back, pulling away fast and he gasped, head reeling, boggling with disbelief at what she had done and what he realised all too late she intended to still do. He could not hold back the fury that escaped his mouth, hauling the anger right up from his chest –

“Bitch” he growled – “You fucking bitch, I’ll kill you – I’ll fucking –”

Her lips pulled back viciously and she slapped him sharply in the face and just as quickly looked cross with herself for doing so.

“You tried that,” she snapped “You won’t. You haven’t got the –” she looked down and his caged cock, his throbbing, full balls and exhaled almost in a whistle, laughing – “Well, maybe you do. Here. Another present for you.”

She reached to the bedside table and flourished what he thought for a mad, mad moment was a large ornate bottle stopper. His heart plummeted painfully within seconds. It was not a bottle stopper. He did not take it from her when she held it out.

“If you think –” he began.

“I don’t just think,” she said – “Do it.”

It all fell into horrible place, the oiling, the decoration, coming to court in the first place. This was his punishment. He knew he would have preferred it if she had simply had him flogged.

“Never.” He thought about pinning her down, turning all of his strength upon her so that she could not fight back, of ramming her offering into her instead and without the benefit of oil.

“Do it,” she repeated; like steel she was. “Or I’ll have Govart come in here and do it for you”. Govart, the big one who hated him, with the fingers like sausages. He would rather die. He snatched it from her; it was gold with a sapphire flower embedded into the hilt. He realised venomously that this would be visible through the light breeches, as well as his state of general despair. He turned his face away from her, not wanting her to see him burn up visibly as he violated himself on her demand.

“Good boy,” she sneered approvingly, lips pulling upwards in a smirk of vile smugness. She reached down and gave his newly fitted chain a gentle tug. It was every imaginable kind of agony to his cock and his dignity. He moved quickly to fall in behind her as she led him out of the room –

“Now heel.”

__x__

 

* **smiles sweetly* :-)**


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

When she entered the great hall, she wondered for the first time if she was as in control of this game as she thought she was; if she had not in fact made a terrible mistake in casting this die in the first place. A quick glance behind her was enough to convince her that this was no mistake; Athos’s face was a picture of furious frustrated misery and the overly fine breeches put his entire sorry state on display for the entire court to see.

He was, as she had foreseen already, not the only one – there were plenty of slaves prepared exactly as he had been but where they wore it with a certain amount of pride and habitual ease it was apparent to anyone watching how completely he was rebelling inwardly at this display.

And they were watched. By everyone. The sight of a noblewoman with a male slave, if not actually illegal, was barely precedented. The attention level was, she decided, just right, enough to be utterly excruciating to her victim without scandalising to the point of her own removal from society, besides which she was already removed enough for it to barely matter. She traversed the hall flawlessly, stopping for longer than was necessary in view of the fighting pit where two slaves had already been thrown at the king’s audience to fight for dominance, the endgame of which was the public rape of the loser. She glanced down briefly, to make sure that Athos was observing, before looking away.

She did not look away quick enough for him not to observe something twitch in her face before her features closed themselves off. She watched the scene in the pit dispassionately, betraying neither the pleasure apparent on the faces of the surrounding Veretians nor the disgust he was sure he was radiating at the sight. He had heard of the depravities and excesses of the Veretian court, but it was still nothing to the reality, pets publicly, almost idly, pleasuring their masters in response to the disgusting scene in front of them, people like himself on the floor whilst their masters sat at the high tables, being fed scraps from those master’s hands as though they were dogs, everywhere the high laughter of the elite, the swish of velvet and lace against stone, the clink of glass and the thud of tankards upon the long tables. He caught her glancing at him again briefly and she smiled tightly.

“I should put you in there,” she murmured so that only he could hear – “Offer you up for their sport. Would you even fight for your own decency?”

“I see no _decency_ in any of this,” he growled in a near whisper – “I doubt you have any right to the word.”

She yanked the chain viciously and he gritted his teeth, ashamed that he could not control his cock even if the midst of this horror.

“ _Decency –”_ she spat the word out as though it were dirty – “Is not always a choice. Think about that sometime.”

She scowled as though she had said too much and turned away from him, face dark for a second, and in the same second breaking into a beam of a smile, her voice high and fluttering –

“Comtesse de Lancret! It’s been too long!”

He followed where she tugged, sullenly, trying not to let any discomfort register on his face, endured the curiosity of stranger after stranger commenting upon him, upon her daring, upon the tantalising whisper of scandal and always, always coming back remorselessly to his all too evident adornments. His only hope of understanding came when they were re-joined by their own party, and he saw the men watching him with expressions of concern. He wondered if there was anything he could do to enlist their actual assistance.

Milady turned her back on the fighting pits and scowled to find herself face to face with Porthos and Aramis. Aramis had been decorated for the occasion to a point even fancier than previously, an ornate chain attaching him to his master that was clearly entirely for show and decorated with occasional feathers. Porthos started to shake his head at her, eyeing Athos in disapproval. She restrained from making her sigh of impatience a visible one, and before Porthos could speak they were interrupted by a clear musical voice and a great shuffling all around them –

“Milady de Winter! So the rumours are true!”

She swallowed hard, lifted her chin and curtseyed so deeply her skirts swished back into her pet’s face.

“Your Highness,” she had to be careful, she knew; extremely careful. She did not even raise her eyes.

“I thought I’d made it clear – ” Louis began, scowling, but he was melting beneath her simpering and he looked round her before he was finished speaking with an impetuous curiosity – “I’ve heard you’ve been extremely scandalous Milady – well then, let me see him.”

She allowed herself to breathe; whimsy had been exactly what she was hoping for, she had laid everything upon it. She stood aside and tugged on the chain. If he could have disobeyed that order there would have been nothing sweeter in that moment, but the strain and the tug on the ring made him fear she would break something if he did not.

“How perfectly shocking,” Louis commented lightly. He sounded utterly delighted. She was relieved – “But you can’t possibly – that is – you would not –”

“It is not my habit to lie with Akielon swine, Sire –” her voice was like crystal; she glanced up at the king finally, the perfect mixture of coy and daring – “Your Majesty must know my tastes are far more –” there could not have been a man in the room who did not observe the way she licked her lips – “Cultivated.” Athos felt as though he was going to be sick. He could not for all the world have explained why.

“Clearly,” Louis said, smiling. “The swine would wish otherwise”. The growing crowd laughed politely; Athos wondered why the floor refused to open up for him.

But rescue came in a far more unexpected form –

“I am sure the pet is human, even if he is Akielon,” came a cool, self-possessed voice, and the crowd that had already parted once for the king did so again for the Queen. She was dressed as though to scorn the ruby red and gold of the court, in clear sky blue, matching not the king but the young lady by her side whom Athos imagined to be a noblewoman but Milady knew to be her favourite pet, a lady she treated rather as Porthos did Aramis – as an equal.

“After all –” she laid a hand on the king’s arm – “We are not all of us here Veretian by birth and it is to my understanding that this one comes as an offering from the Regent himself.” Milady inclined her head in a fractional acquiescence.

“It can only be taken as a positive sign that the Regent of Akielos would make these peace offerings to the Veretian nobility,” the Queen said clearly, almost as though she were making an announcement and certainly her tone brooked no objection. “To treat his gifts with disdain would send an un-necessarily antagonistic message to Ios, do you not agree?” She turned her cutting gaze on the King who, though he visibly rolled his eyes beneath her logic, turned his back slowly on the group, one hand briefly lighting on Milady’s shoulder as he went. “You are welcome again in this court Milady, you and your pet - seeing you has been - remarkably refreshing.”

When he went away she finally let out her breath. She could have sworn for a moment she felt a similar heave of relief at her side and could almost have imagined they had reacted simultaneously. Porthos shook his head at her one final time before they found their seats at one of the high tables.

Athos spent the next two hours crouched on the floor like an obedient dog, refusing to look up or around him unless compelled – as she did frequently compel him – to do so. His entire world was limited to the toe of her boot and the glistening red hem of her dress. Now and then she would reach him a morsel of food to eat from her fingers which, though increasingly hungry, he stubbornly refused to take. He wondered if she was even as aware of him as he so constantly and painfully was of her. The pounding in his cock made it hard to think logically. It made it hard to think at all. It made it impossible to think of anything other than her. He wondered how long she could let him go like this; he wondered under what circumstances she might let him cure it. He wished he could think about anything important. There was something wrong here, in this court, something threatening and simmering even beneath the depravity and decadence, something going all the way to the monarchy, the relations between the countries. He felt like a pawn in a far more important game than the one he had been dragged into. He could not think. At the depths of his shame he pressed his head into her hand, took a bite of meat from her fingers, licked her fingers clean when she kept them there, kept his head pressed against her palm longer than he should- only afterwards realising that she had not forced him to do any of this. He wanted to bury himself inside her, cool every aching inch, wanted her to say no but would never ever rape her, he wanted to hurt her but did not want her in pain, wanted to kill her but did not want her dead again. Anything but that. He had seen the look on her face that she had quickly covered, over by the fighting pits, and he wanted her to tell him something true, just for once; he did not know if he wanted to hear. He was ridden with everything that he did and did not want. Now and then she would tug on his chain for no reason he could see but to remind him of his need and discomfort. He could feel himself jerked against the stiff leather of her boot every time she did it, he seethed and simmered, thought once too fast about wrapping the damned chain around her neck and crawled back up inside himself rapidly in disgust.

He thought the worst of it was over when he started to hear the sounds of conglomerate movement as people began to depart. She rose, bringing him back to his feet; it felt like a head rush after so long on the floor, but then – just as they were leaving (and when had he started thinking in terms of _they_ anyway?) a  jocular voice took them from behind with –

“I see your poor pet is still in something of a state.”

It was one of those exceptionally awful noblewomen she had done the rounds of earlier, who had stared at him in far too much fascination. He hoped against hope that they could just nod an acknowledgement and carry on but Milady stopped, smiling far too sweetly for his liking.

“You don’t _really_ mean to keep him like that do you?”

He was watching her face carefully, heart hammering. The mask she wore slipped into a wicked curving smile.

“I suppose it _would_ be a waste not to have him perform for you all,” she announced to the gradually growing group of overly interested onlookers.

“It’s not often one sees a pet like that,” someone commented – “I imagine there would be plenty here who could offer up his own to be mounted by the beast.”

The gentle round of snickers made Athos want to growl.

“You can count me out,” came a voice so insolent, so disapproving it would have been impossible to believe without checking that it came from a pet at all; but it was Aramis, he sauntered past the group scowling, nose in the air, Porthos just behind him wearing a similar expression without the insolence.

“Milady –” Porthos placed a cautioning hand on her shoulder. She looked at it as though it were a spider – “Don’t do this.”

“I said I would take your advice when I required it,” she answered frostily, not looking at him. “I trust we have not yet sunk to those lows”.

Porthos looked at her sadly but he moved on past, one arm around Aramis’s shoulders, looking rather as though he were restraining the urge to spit on the ground in front of the whole group of them.

“No matter,” she re-addressed the group lightly – “I’m sure the creature knows how to sort itself out –” She reached inside his breeches, fingering the catch on the ring that seemed tighter than ever for her proximity.

“I will not do this,” he ground out between his teeth.

“You will –” she whispered, her breath against his ear making his cock twitch for all to see – “This is the only chance for release you will get - or I’ll put it straight back on you and never take it off –” she stepped forward, almost gliding until she was close against him, apparently oblivious to everyone watching them – “besides –” she whispered it so low only he could hear, her lips brushing against the edge of his ear – “There are worse places I could attach that chain to.”

She flicked the tip of his cock viciously, threateningly for all the vile gentleness in that touch, and undid both chain and ring with quick, practised hands. He could hear the crowd around them murmuring approvingly, commenting on the size of him and his evident embarrassment, delighting in both like a flock of malicious birds. He did not look at any of them, _could_ not if he was really going to do this. He looked at her instead, _only_ at her; it was no task at all to narrow down his vision into this one bright fixed point smouldering before his eyes like a flame that burnt him out. He had already been doing it for years. There was no backing down in her face, no sign that she would suddenly let him off this and in that moment he did not want her to. He caught her eye and would not let it go, would neither look anywhere else nor let her look anywhere else as his hand moved on his cock. He looked her in the eye and tried to dive beneath that surface of dangerous green, to see if he could find the woman he had married somewhere in those depths. Her eyes gave him nothing, nothing but memory, he remembered too completely the shape and the shifting colours of those eyes, her pupils wide and black in the candlelight, flecks of gold in the green, the way she had looked at him when he was inside her, wide eyed and almost confused, as if she did not understand how or why it could feel so good. He wondered why it could not be simple, obvious to her as it was obvious to him, that he had loved her and needed her and found nothing but pleasure in the feel of her, the taste and sensations of her. It was all too easy to move his hand miserably on his cock dreaming of her as absent now as she had been in five years of doing exactly this.

In return she stared him back as though his gaze were an attack. She barely blinked but narrowed her eyes beneath the way he seemed to be trying to rake her soul. She would not look away but wished she could have the same simple satisfaction as every other onlooker in simply witnessing his act of crawling humiliation. When he came, fiercely, quietly, the crowd let out a collective sigh of satisfaction and she felt as though she had been jolted out of a trance.

“Ugh –” she said, as though she had been positively bored by the whole thing. “What a mess you’ve made. Be a good dog and lick it up now.”

There was laughter and murmurs of approval from the crowd; one lady could be heard to actually applaud a little. Athos did not even look up again to see if she really meant it. He knew that she did. He followed her gaze down to where his seed had splashed onto the toe of her boot and, closing his eyes and grimacing, got down on his hands and knees. She pushed her foot delicately across the stone and he – he thought about fighting, about fighting all of this- but instead was appalled to feel a trickle of arousal pooling back into his groin as he licked wretchedly at the toe of the presented boot. He tasted himself, salty and still warm, and leather, felt it shiny beneath his tongue and was aware, worst of all, as he had not been aware before, of the crowd around watching and appraising his degradation. All the time he wondered how he had ever doubted it would come to something like this, how he could have imagined anything else of her. He licked and he hated and he hated.

It seemed to go on forever but finally he made himself look up- again he could not look at anyone else. Her face betrayed nothing, no approval or disapproval, no joy or distaste in her revenge. She simply nodded and re-affixed the chain looped in her hand to the collar at his neck.

“Ladies –” she turned smiling, inclining her head – “Gentlemen. Thank you for your interest. We’ll be here all week.”

This time, as she led him out - her smile turned into what looked like a smirk and her air, he was certain, was positively ebullient – everybody behind them broke out into applause.

__x__

  **(Psst spoiler, Athos is an unreliable narrator, pass it on. :-)) Also PLOT to occur in next chapter O____O :-)**


	8. Chapter 8

**8.**

She was shaking violently underneath her stillness and all the tight stiff layers of fabric. This had not played out as she had thought it would play, and she was angry that it had not- and something else she could not put a finger on, itching her underneath the skin. It was the revenge she had been seeking, she was sure of it; she could not imagine why it did not feel sweet. It should have tickled pleasantly, given her a sense of satisfaction to witness his humiliation and shame – instead – no, this was all wrong. There was something disgusting pulsing beneath her ribs, trying to crawl up her throat, something thrumming in her head like bees inside her skull. She had thought giving back just a  little of what she had been given all her life would feel good but humiliation and shame, it seemed were the kind of old acquaintances she had not needed to see again, even at second hand like this. She felt _guilty._ She had felt a lot of the feelings rising in her before – dirty, ashamed, disgusted, fraudulent – but never _guilty,_ anything but that.

She left Athos on the pet’s sleeping pallet in the corner, chain running from his collar to the bracket attached to the wall. She found herself unable to look at him. She turned her back on him and got into the large bed without undressing, letting the curtains close all around her. She dismissed the servant girl first; she felt as though if anyone touched her she would scream, or kill them, or both.

The curtains closed her in but she did not feel safer. It was like being under water with all this blue around her; she felt strangely on the verge of panic, as though she was really drowning this time. She tried to curl in on herself in the middle of the bed but she was laced in too tightly. Without someone to help her it was almost impossible to unlace herself, she pulled first gently and then savagely at the laces. When they did not yield she felt panic crawl around her like bugs, tiny legs all over her skin, she could feel the sweat sticking to the undergarments. She drew the knife out of her boot and slipped it under the laces of one sleeve and then another. She was breathing heavily as she attacked every seam along the dress, and almost screaming in her battle with it by the time it was in shreds at the foot of the bed. She threw the knife in among the folds as though hurling it into the heart of a bloody and dying beast. The corset came more easily, but her chest still heaved as though she were reaching under her skin and dragging out her innards.

Her first unimpeded breath came out in a deep long shudder, hiding a scream inside that she refused to let out. She curled up in the centre of the huge bed, crawling under the coverlet and stifling her sobs in the pillows. She shook silently for a while, utterly unwilling to analyse why.

After a while of this she stopped, felt ridiculous, dried her eyes angrily and berated herself for her nonsense. There was no need, no need at all to feel somehow as though she had been the one  publically displayed, violated, as she felt, by her own actions. She should have known better, should not have treated him like that. She successfully beat down a mad urge to go to him, small and lost as she , and apologise, curl into the circle of his arms that had been open to her once, in another life. She drew in a long breath, pressed her lips together tightly; she was not small, she was not lost. She knew exactly what she was doing and that level of exposure was certainly not it. She felt washed out, now that the rage had passed, confused and rather ashamed of that shuddering violence of feeling.

She wriggled her way across the bed to reach for the water beside it. She was desperate for a real drink. She had been putting fruit juice in her wine glass all night. She knew this court, knew not only the strength of its alcohol but the things they liked to slip into it, how it made you lose your inhibition and control at the very best, and at worst confounded all the senses. She was far from ready to risk anything like that and so even now, she drank water with a hand wrapped round the glass that she glared at until the grip became steady. She closed her eyes for several minutes to try and regain some sense of peace. _Regain_ – she scoffed silently at the idea, clenched her fist, pushing it deep into a pillow. She realised that she was still wearing her boots.

She was too prickly, too uncomfortable to even think about trying to sleep. She swung herself to the side of the bed, opening the curtains on the side furthest from Athos, took nightgown and dressing gown from the chair upon which they had been laid and got up, rifling through the wreckage of her dress to replace the knife back into her boot. She needed air and badly. She remembered that there was barely a room in this palace that did not have a secret door leading elsewhere, remembered that there was a positive street system hidden in the walls and that she had made a point at one time of mapping it out. She walked slowly from wall to wall of the room until she found it, childishly easily hidden behind one of the large wall hangings.

She followed the hidden corridors until she came out onto the battlements; there was an entire roof garden up here in which one could almost get lost. She stood in the shadow of the highest wall for a long moment, breathing in the blessedly cool night air and the musky scent of the ivy that covered these walls.

It was the exhibitionism of it all that she had not been prepared for she supposed, the casual dehumanisation of half the people in the hall that night, the obscene spectacles being played out everywhere in public, the blatant rapes in the fighting pits. She had imagined there would be something empowering, cathartic even in witnessing it all from the other side – there was not. She simply felt sickened at the scenes in which she had played a part tonight - _we’ll be here all week._ She cringed to think of herself playing that role, at how easily it had slipped out of her and how reminiscent it somehow was. Stupid, she thought, stupid to have these floods of foul memory six years on from anything terrible having happened, ten years on, twenty. She punched the wall beside her silently and started to walk. She walked aimlessly at first until she found a set of stairs leading down the outside of the wall round to one of the castle’s outer courtyards.

She was rounding the last of the curving stone steps when she saw a figure hurrying around the far wall of the same courtyard, keeping to the shadows, determined not to be seen but behaving altogether far too furtively not to be . She kept to the ivy on her own side of the wall and mirrored his passage across to the hidden door at the far corner. She could not say at that point why she could not help but follow him, only that it felt like a relief to have the distraction.

The interloper noticed nothing and she did not make herself known until she had followed him long enough to determine that he was taking a little known route to the Queen’s personal chambers. It was narrower in these corridors, and she was forced to keep closer so as not to lose him. Not ten meters from the Queen’s door he paused, patting his pockets beneath a sconce in the wall. At this point she realised several things very quickly; one was that this man meant harm to the Queen, the other was that she _knew_ his face. She wished she did not but she did- some faces were impossibly to fully wipe from memory, however ugly and her skin crawled. She bit hard on the knuckle of one finger so as not to gasp. Memory washed over her like a terrible tide and she could not have said if it was more this or more concern for the Queen that drew her up tight behind him, a swift right forearm locked around his neck hard enough that he could not make a sound above a scuffle.

“ _Hush now, hush,”_ she whispered in his ear; memory rocked her in its waves, dragging her down in its undertow. She wished he could see her face, remember her before the end – “ _It’ll be so much easier if you don’t struggle.”_ The words echoed around her brain as she slid the knife expertly between his ribs and pushed upwards. He kicked feebly, but not for very long. _This,_ she thought, holding on to the man as he became a body and lying it down on the floor – _this_ was cathartic. This gave her the sense of satisfaction she had lacked in taking her revenge on Athos, which suddenly no longer seemed like it could ever have been as necessary.

She felt better than she had all night, lying the body down and starting methodically through the pockets, finding, not the weapon she had expected, but a letter, stiff cream with the seal, as she had guessed from the first, of the Regent of Akielos. She slipped it into her sleeve, wiped the knife off on the dead man’s jacket, secured it carefully back in her boot and made her way back up the passageway to the side courtyard, from there to the deeper darkness of the shadowed roof garden.

In the shadows she opened the letter carefully without breaking the seal and contents, eyes widening by moonlight. What she read was so astounding that she started badly when she looked up and there was a figure looming over her. She cursed, a violent hiss –

“How did you – what the devil are _you_ doing here?”

Athos grabbed her arm before she could slip away or reach for her weapon; his grip was almost painful, holding her still.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“It would be none of your business. Let me go.”

“No,” thank God, he was also instinctively whispering.

“Look whatever you want, whatever your problem –” she bit her lip, remembering how she had left him, remembering that he might have a great deal of valid problems just now and all of them her doing – “Now is simply not the time, go back to your room.”

He made a sound that was not quite a laugh.

“Oh I’m sorry, am I _inconveniencing_ you. How terribly awkward.” His grip on her arm was turning into a pinch.

“Look I’m sorry, Athos I really am;” she was, but she snapped it coolly enough that they could both imagine it was a lie, “You have every reason to hate me right now, and believe me the feeling is mutual but I seem to have stumbled on a rather pesky threat to Queen and country just now, and when I say this is not the time, trust me, _this is not the time.”_

She flapped the letter that was still in her hand wearily. He frowned, but let go of her and took it. She watched his eyes widen as he read it, saw his attention shift in the instant, just as hers had done from personal concerns to the wider picture.

“See?” she snatched it back – “if the Queen were even found with this upon her person it would jeopardise her position beyond the telling of it –”

“-And Rochefort is not to be trusted,” Athos finished. She rolled her eyes.

“Genius” she groaned, then squinted at him – “What do you know of the man?”

“I know he harbours intentions towards the Veretian throne and now it seems – to the queen as well. I know he is responsible for my current situation. I know he chose to send me to _you.”_ He made this latter sound far more perilous than the threat to Queen and country. She sighed.

“Athos –” It occurred to her that with everything that had passed between them these last few days, this was the first time they had come close to actually talking and she had not once even tried to look him in the eye. He, who had been repeatedly brought to his knees before her, was looking at her steady and fixed.  “Whatever this is –” she indicated the two of them, her voice betraying – _this mess that we are –_ “it doesn’t matter. Go. Get out of here; I won’t stop you – I –”

Athos cut her off with a hushing sound, pushing her, surprisingly gently, further back into the shadows. She paused, re- pocketed the letter; there were voices coming from below, footsteps gathering in the courtyard outside the wall. They waited, breathless in the dark hearing the footsteps gather, the murmurs become more decided, more focused. Silently she tapped Athos’ shoulder, drew his attention to the letter in her sleeve – _Last line,_ she mouthed at him and he nodded _–reply to my man immediately, or I will decide for you and in the instant._

“Come on if you’re coming,” she broke away from him and headed quickly in the direction of the assembling men, knowing what they now intended, and whilst having no especial loyalty to Queen Anne, remembered only too clearly the difference in the brief time she had spent as her pet than as Rochefort’s slave and it was motivation enough to ruin everything for the latter that she possibly could. Once again Athos took her arm.

“Anne –” she blinked rapidly, for a long still moment she thought he was talking about the queen. It was almost sickeningly disorienting to realise otherwise.

“No –” she looked at him sharply, catching his eye for the first time, oh so much confusion there, so much anger and for some reason concern – “No, not for a long time,” she moved off fast not caring if he followed or not.

He caught up to her again half way down the stairs.

“You cannot mean to fight them –”

“What?” she scanned the courtyard – “Eight men, one woman – I’ve seen worse odds –”

“I’m here.”

“What?”

“It’s not _just_ you.”

She snorted.

“It is _always_ just –” she broke off, the group was starting to move towards the hidden passageway. Athos inched out in front of her –

“Stay behind,” he grunted. “Stay safe.”

She elbowed him sharply, dodging in front.

“ _You_ stay safe,” she snapped, dagger back in hand. She waited until the last man was heading through the door before gliding fast across the courtyard and slitting his throat silently from behind. She got the second in near silence with a chloroformed handkerchief she kept in her bosom, but this one’s brief scuffle was in overly close proximity to the remaining six, she pushed Athos and they bid a retreat back to the courtyard with the group hard on their tails. Athos, she noted quickly with approval, had picked up the first fallen man’s sword, she had the second, and they fell instinctively back to back as they were surrounded. Before either side could move though, two of the shadows came to life, attacking the circle around them and breaking it up. With three men suddenly occupied by three fighting men apparently on her own side, Milady grinned, weighing the sword in her hand and going up against the remaining three. The air rang with steel and moving shadows falling upon each other in the dark. She took down one man before he knew what was happening, blood singing with the fight. It made her too confident going into the other two and whilst the one monopolised her sword the other grabbed her from behind. She kicked but could not afford to lose her defence against the man in front and was almost at the point of despairing when she felt herself freed and heard the unmistakable sound of a sword going into the man holding her. She whipped around, just as Aramis slipped in to occupy the one remaining swordsman. It was Athos, behind her with a body crumpling at his feet. She stared at him shocked, wondering why he would even have stopped them killing her.

“You’re welcome,” he said, shrugging, looking confused, as though he could not fathom it himself.

The last man had been driven into a corner by the other two and they both ran over to add their swords to the fight –

“Wait,” she said, lowering hers whilst three swords remained poised, held in one direction – “Wait, we can use this one. Now _what -_ ” She turned to Porthos accusingly whilst Aramis starting tying the wrists of the prisoner – “What in God’s name have you all been doing?”

“Keeping an eye on you,” Porthos said.

“Who do you think unchained me?” Athos added.

“Knew you’d need our help,” Aramis finished, rising from the now prone man.

“Oh,” she looked from one to the other of them, nodding wearily – “Oh. Wonderful. Excellent. Male bonding. Exactly what I need.”

“It _is_ what you need.” Porthos made a sweeping gesture to indicate the dead men scattering the courtyard.

“I could have –” she started, but stopped. Lies were automatic and useful, some lies however were just too ridiculous to even attempt to maintain. She sighed – “How long have you been following me?”

“Since you left the room,” Aramis said smugly.

“We’d been just outside the door,” Porthos scratched his head apologetically – “heard the inner door slide open when you left - Athos here saw you go, showed us the way. We lost you for a bit unchaining him, then we let him go ahead – thought you two might need, uh – that you might have –”

“Oh delightful –” she moaned. “Marriage guidance as well. Whatever would I do without –”

“If I asked what in the name of everything has been going on in the near vicinity of my chambers tonight, I trust there would be a reasonable explanation?” came a remarkably calm voice from the doorway. The four of them turned around almost as one to see Queen Anne composedly regarding the carnage in the courtyard like an owner whose cat has left a dead mouse outside the door. She crossed the courtyard swiftly –

“Who are these men? Why are they dead? Did all of you come here tonight to save my life or to threaten it? I would be grateful if you might start explaining.”

“Tell her,” Porthos nudged Athos.

“You tell her.”

“Oh for god’s sake,” Milady stepped forward with a sigh – “ _I’ll_ tell her.”

__x__

**As always thanks to _Zedrobber_ for beta’ing and thanks to _Charis_ this time for “Male bonding” and far too much helpful and ready advice on how to kill a man. :-) I don’t know what I’d do without you guys. :-)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Just because it does get relevant this chapter and people unfamiliar with the territory might start to scream in need of a point of reference, here’s a link to a map of Akielos and Vere that I posted a while ago:**

**<http://magpie-in-the-shade.tumblr.com/post/147975769050/map-of-akielos-and-vere> **

**9.**

“So that was what he meant in the last line –” the Queen frowned, peering at the letter in her hands, holding it gingerly as though it might at any moment bite her or burn her – “That if I did not agree and leave with his men immediately he would send others to simply – what, abduct me?”

“That appears to be the way of it, Your Grace.” Aramis seemed to have found his voice first out of the men. They had gone back down the corridor to the Queen’s own apartment rather than risk this conversation out in the open, and were now all of them stood around a desk in a secret side room for added security.

“And which of you intercepted the courier to begin with? How did you know?” She looked round at that sharply. Milady jerked her head in silent acknowledgement. She had made a detour, as quick as she could manage it, back to her rooms to get changed and, in readiness for further action, had dressed more in the manner of a Veretian gentleman than a lady. Athos, she had quickly noticed, did not seem to be able to stop staring at her; she was not sure if it was the knee high boots, the tightness of the breeches or the fact that she was wearing her corset over a tightly laced crisp white men’s shirt. For once he was not her priority, and after all the emotional upheaval he had caused her already tonight it was a relief.

“Know, your Majesty?”

“That they meant me harm. It seems to me the man was taken down swiftly and with some skill.”

“I am – somewhat acquainted with the Regent and certain of his men,” she replied cautiously. Only Athos, eyeing her sharply, noticed the way her lip twitched in the corner, and he said nothing.

“Hmm.” The Queen also eyed her with faint suspicion; Milady could only assume it was a lingering mistrust from her time spent in the palace years before. “I too have had a long-standing acquaintance with Rochefort, it would not have led me to an instant assumption of foul play –” she softened, considering – “but it appears your instincts were more accurate than mine. Might I inquire –”

“With all due respect, your Majesty, you may not. Suffice it to say that my acquaintance with the Regent may have been somewhat more –” this time the Queen noticed her lip twitch as well – “ _Intimate_ than your own.”

Queen Anne looked at her askance and Milady could read the reply that snapped to her mind clearly enough in those cool appraising eyes – _your acquaintance with everyone is more intimate than my own, is it not? Including my own husband, the king._ On this occasion however she did not press it, bit her lip and took a step back from them, raising a hand to her head to press her temple before she spoke decidedly.

“Louis cannot hear of this,” she nodded as she spoke. “Our first priority is to cover up everything that has happened here tonight – Constance –” surprising all of them, she turned to the heretofore silent lady at her side – “I need you. You know the ins and outs of every pet in this court – is there any among them who can both hide eight bodies and create a disturbance unconnected to said bodies?”

“What manner of disturbance?” Constance stepped forward as though she were a soldier.

“I need you to run away with him. Such a scandal would both amuse the King and provide a suitable explanation for the dead men – once all traces of Akielon regalia has been removed from the bodies.”

“You’re asking me – if I can find someone who would both what? Take the blame for eight dead men and pretend to be my lover, all at once?”

“I’m sorry Constance, I know it’s a long –”

“No. I know someone. I’ll find him now.” Constance smiled brightly at the group, inclined her head just a fraction in acknowledgement and headed out cheerily. When the door closed behind her, everyone heard Aramis laugh inappropriately into the silent room, stopping when he saw the rest of them scowling at him.

“What? I _like_ her.” He grew as serious as the rest of them – “But with all due respect, your Majesty, I cannot believe the King would believe you complicit in your own abduction.”

“I am Akielon,” Anne said wearily.  “I am therefore capable of anything in Veretian eyes, _including_ my own abduction, but now the first steps are underway –”

“Our next must be to ensure Your Majesty’s safety,” Athos supplied quietly; he had not forgotten her quiet rescue of him earlier that night, and had already decided where his loyalties lay. Milady stared fixedly and sightlessly at the wall to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“I agree,” said the Queen. “I have a retainer, based in Aquitart, a body of men loyal to myself, supplied in his absence by my brother the king of Akielos whilst he fights in the war with Patras. I need you –” her gaze took in all four of them – “To travel undercover to Aquitart and inform them of the situation.”

“ _All_ of us?” Milady broke in – “Why?”

“I need _you,”_ the Queen looked at her sharply – “As you uncovered this plot in the first place and must admit that you have saved my life tonight. But I don’t trust you,” she added quickly and without malice – “And so I need these others. I don’t know what game led you to be following each other around the palace at night – and I don’t care to,” she raised a warning hand before Porthos could object – “But I do know that I owe all of you my current precarious safety. I expect to be updated daily. I know this is asking a lot, but I have more.”

“We are at your service, Your Majesty,” Porthos bowed, Aramis and Athos echoed the gesture.

“Speak for yourselves,” Milady interjected.  “I’m not in your service,” she added, directing this at the queen with the faintest shrug – “But if loyalty to Rochefort’s destruction is any substitute you may count me as trustworthy as any.” Every man in the room seemed to hold his breath as the green eyes narrowed and the blue slanted back. It was like, as Aramis told Porthos later, waiting to see which of two cats would unsheathe its claws first.

“It will suffice” Anne nodded, after the pause and the tension ebbed “And there is, as I say more. From Aquitart I need you to travel to Fortaine, take with you a retinue of ten men – twenty if you can see to keeping that many still undercover – go via Ravenal and Marlas and acquaint the garrisons there of a potential threat from Akielos. When Rochefort discovers his plans heretofore have failed he may turn his attention on Vere in a military capacity. We cannot afford to have our armies unprepared. Will you do this for me? I will send you word of what is to transpire from then on once you reach Fortaine.”

“We will, Your Majesty,” said Porthos, speaking for them all.

“I have just one question –” Aramis glanced at Athos apologetically, as though he hoped he were not being presumptuous in speaking for them both. The Queen nodded for him to go on. “Should those of us who are pets to the others retain such status on this journey or are we permitted a higher level of freedom?” Athos waited more precariously on the answer than he did.

“Forgive me,” Anne sighed wearily. “But your personal relations are none of my concern. That must be as it is – for the owners to decide.” Athos’s shoulders slumped; Porthos threw Aramis the sword he had put down earlier.

“One more, then,” Milady this time. Anne took a deep breath that, had she not been a queen might have come out as a groan but she gestured a quiet _go on._

“Which of us is in charge of this mission?”

“Much as it pains me to say it –” the queen looked at them all archly, biting her lip – “This mission hangs upon your stealth and communication skills and so –” she sighed again – “You are, Milady de Winter is it? – do not give me cause to regret that. And now you must pardon me – I know you are all as tired as I am, but if stealth is to be achieved you must leave now. Can you saddle the horses you brought with you? Ride full speed to Chastillon, I will have Constance and her assistant meet you there with supplies for the rest of the journey. Go now. Don’t be seen.”

Porthos led them out and down to the stables as the only one who knew the way. Athos noticed with some bitterness that he had removed all collaring or anything that made Aramis recognisable as a pet. When he heard Aramis murmur that he would slip off and change into something more suitable for riding he could not help a quick glance at Milady walking briskly at his side.

“Not a chance,” she smiled back as though she had said something pleasant. He glared.

“A shirt, at least.”

“He _is_ more noticeable than he needs to be, Milady,” Porthos put in, mildly. Athos did not even dare shoot him the look of gratitude that he felt.

“Fine,” she sighed – “But don’t push it. You’re not Aramis,” she was almost as surprised to hear the tone of _thank goodness_ in the words as Athos was. “I’d say you’ll regret that interference –” she began turning to Porthos as Athos followed after Aramis.

“I already am,” Porthos groaned as they entered the stables. “Now I’ve got four horses to ready by myself and – did you _have_ to chloroform that stable boy?”

“Well what would you have done -  hit him on the head?” She smiled sweetly again; she was starting to feel inordinately tired. Porthos looked away, grumbling gently again about having to ready the horses single-handedly.

“Single-handedly,” Milady snorted softly, both of them whispering – “Like hell. Give me that.” She took the saddle out of Porthos’s hands. He let her take it, placidly.

“I didn’t think ladies knew such things,” he grumbled approvingly this time, as he turned to his horse.

“Please,” she did not look at him – “We both know I’m no more a lady than you are.”

“I’m not a lady.”

“And you’re not much of a Comte. Hand me that bridle.”

“You can’t stay this cross all the way to Fortaine.”

Milady beamed –

“Can I not?”

“What did he do to you, anyway?”

“What?”

“Athos. You’re not as horrible as you like to pretend –”

“Shut up,” Milady scowled, seeing Athos and Aramis coming in.

“So what did he do?” Porthos, back to the door, had not seen them. Milady sighed, out of patience.

“He killed me,” she flashed Athos a glittering, exhausted smile. “Didn’t you dear?”

Athos was tugging at his sleeves, and mercifully did not hear her, neither did she repeat it because she could not suppress a whispery throaty chuckle at the sight of him; the shirt was open at the neck, displaying his collar and the sleeves were only laced half way down the arm, stopping before the wrist cuffs, but altogether he wore the Veretian style so badly that she suspected he wished he could have gone without a shirt after all.

“You think _you’ve_ had problems,” Aramis sighed, going straight over to help Porthos saddle the second horse, anything, his manner implied, better than trying to dress Athos. Athos slowly followed suit, only starting to help when Milady shoved a saddle at him.

“Why are you doing this?” he murmured across the horse.

“Doing what?”

“Why do you care what happens to the Queen? Or the country?”

“I don’t” she shrugged – “But I hear that dramatic political turmoil leaves nobody able to live in peace. I value my own safety if nothing else.”

“Of course you do.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else. Why help?”

“For heinous reasons of my own then, obviously. Get on your horse.”

“You get on a horse.”

“Get on your damned horse Athos. I still own you.”

“Hey! You two!” Porthos shouted over in the loudest whisper – or possibly the quietest shout- either of them had ever heard. They both, almost simultaneously swung up into the saddle, not able to meet Porthos in the eye. “Knock that off! This is going to be a long journey and we have to make it work together, alright?”

“And that,” Milady replied but too low for anyone but her horse to hear – “Is why I’m going to be cross all the way to Fortaine –” adding in a whisper loud enough for them all to hear, a scathing, hissed – “ _Men,”_ and a noise of faint disgust. She kicked her horse into motion and led them quietly out of the side gate before entering into a gallop.

__x__

**Plot is not my forte so sorry if I turned this too comedic in my attempt to cope with Actual Narrative tm – promise to revert to your regularly scheduled angst and feels in the next chapter! :-)**

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

**10.**

He had heard the sounds of her not quite crying from his pallet in the corner by the wall. He had heard how hard she had tried to hide every sound, and his heart had started to scream alongside those terrible muffled sounds. Like an almost parental urge, an imprint in the system to go to the crying child, he had ached to go to her, heart clamouring at his ribs, trying to pull them apart like prison bars, her laboured breathing scratching a way into his chest. He almost did move to go to her, to hold her, rocking her in his mind until the awful not quite sobbing subsided and she was safe and happy as she had been once, just to press her to his chest and love her, just love her. But he could not move because he was chained to the wall and she had put him there. He hated her.

Even after everything that had transpired that night it was still her damaged breathing, her swallowed tears that he could hear, filling him over his horse’s hooves as they raced across the ground heading away from the castle. Riding felt deceptively like freedom after his captivity – it was strange to think that he still a captive even for that, even with the wind rushing in his ears and face and the power of the animal underneath him. He could not keep up with the twists and turns of his life anymore and so instead he spurred his horse to at least try and keep up with hers.

He wondered what was going through her mind now, both wishing and not wanting to see inside that nest of snakes. Why had she involved herself with this? Why did she care at all? It was impossible to really speak to her; she would never really be honest with him and he did not know if he would know it if she was. Perhaps that was why she was not. Perhaps it was his fault after all, there was enough that was. He dug his heels in tighter, rather than this, but it seemed as though he would never catch up to her.

He could hear Porthos and Aramis not far behind him, all of them churning the ground to dust beneath their hooves. It occurred to him that he alone out of the four of them had no idea as to which way they were going or how far Chastillon even was from here; he did all he could do – he followed her, never losing sight of the figure ahead of him in the dark, riding until the dawn began to creep in, a brightening of the world that was more than usually visible to see from the back of a horse. He noticed it first in the detail of his own hands upon the reins, the black shadowy bulk of his horse turning grey in the light, the world around him, as he looked turning likewise to shades of silver, green in the trees around them and golden on the road. He could see the chestnut of the horse in front of him, the rider becoming more separable from the animal. He could see the shape of her, the dove colour of those damned breeches and her hair fluttering like a pennant behind her as she rode. He could hardly bear the shape of her like this; could hardly focus to think of the clench of her thighs around the horse beneath her, the steadiness of her hands on the reins. As the dawn brightened he could see the detail in her corset lacings, the outline of morning light around her hair and arms. What was happening inside her? Who was she anyway? He had not cared once – he had felt as though he had not cared at least, how complacent he had been, how badly he had lied to himself. He was not the good man he had naively assumed himself to be. Looking at her now, her body in motion as she rode, he could but think how unforgiveable it had been to even think of ending her. She was shimmering, bristling with life; and his whole self sang out in gratitude for it.

Where did this come from, he wondered? Fighting alongside her perhaps, that brief conversation that had passed between them, that moment in which he had not hesitated to save her life, her sadness, her fierce independence, her intelligence. He had lived with her for the most part of a glorious year and never seen the half of what was in her and all she was capable of. In spite of everything she had done he was intrigued. Maybe it was simply not being able to see her eyes as she rode on ahead - and the terrifying deadness he had witnessed there at times. She could flash fire and turn to stone within a heartbeat and he could not know her. There were daggers in her eyes when she looked at him and they cut him bitingly. He found himself more fascinated by her now than perhaps he ever had been; for the first time it occurred to him that whether he hated her or not, whatever she was or whoever she was he _wanted_ to know her, to really know her as perhaps he never had.

He imagined riding up behind her in the early morning sunlight, their horses slowing to a trot and then riding slowly side by side, introducing himself as someone she had never met and seeing her turn, imagining the flash of cool sunlight caught in her crooked teeth and the brightness in her eyes that he remembered. He imagined seeing it for the first time, falling in love with her as though he had never done it before. He chided himself for imagining (knowing) that he would do so in that first instance of her smile, for imagining this alternate world where they could simply start again. He thought about courting her, of taking time over it this time, of himself being just a man and her just a woman, just two people between whom it could be simple, clasping hands over a table in a first drink out together, kissing her shyly with the breath caught in his throat. He was a damned fool. He was hard as hell and unsure of when it had happened.

But her horse did slow and he came alongside her; for a moment the dream still hovered around him but when she turned, she did not smile and her face was exhausted and closed. Her eyes were stranger’s eyes, looking at him blankly for a moment, a continual sheen of accusation and bitterness about to bead her eyelashes. Her brows knit together curiously – he remembered always having wanted to rub her forehead, smooth them out – and she did smile just a little though it was far from what his hazy dreams had imagined, a tired twisted pull at the corner of her mouth –

“What?” she asked, no doubt of the way he was looking at her, some residue from the dream perhaps still golden on his face and how could he reply? What could he possibly say to summarise it all? _Stop, wait please. I think I know you? I think I hate you? I think perhaps I loved you once? I need you, I despise you, I want you. I don’t know who you are but I swear I’d give my life for you. Stop, please –_ these latter the best two words to say to the galloping dream of a girl he found on the edge of the morning sunlight – _Stop, please; I think you could be my life._ He could not. Not one word of it.

“Nothing,” he rubbed his head wearily – “Nothing. Are we here?”

She looked at him suspiciously for a moment before blinking rapidly as though she were simply too tired to try and work out what was going on with him just now, did not care even.

“Yes,” she said, addressing it to all of them as Porthos and Aramis pulled up alongside them – “Yes, we’re here.”

Chastillon was not much more than a castle and a few houses, stretching to be a village, a quiet alternate retreat of the king’s for the hunting season. They got off the horses to lead them quietly through the dawning streets towards the inn, Milady drawing a voluminous cloak around herself to hide the oddity of her attire –

“Our king has no fondness for women dressing like men,” she said to nobody in particular – “I do not imagine he is the only Veretian nobleman to harbour such ridiculous sentiments. Now you –” she took Porthos by the arm to stop him moving on ahead without instruction – “You and I are nobility, whimsically visiting this charming village for nothing more than amusement with our _devoted_ pets in tow –” she shot a glaring glance at Athos which dared him to object – “Do you think you can manage it?”

“Not hard,” Porthos grunted; he was clearly, Athos noticed, as tired as the rest of them – “the roles at least are not entirely lies –”

“Do you think _you_ can manage it?” Athos slipped the barb at her before he could stop himself. To Milady’s surprise, Porthos glared at him as well. Aramis handed his sword to Porthos to hide, fixing an ornate glittering earring into one ear to better look the part of an obedient pet. Milady stared Athos down until he grudgingly handed over his sword also. She secreted it in her cloak and they moved as one towards the inn.

The inn was quiet at this hour, most of the visitors and passers–through not having yet stirred from their beds. It was curious for everyone in their little group to realise that for them it was beyond a doubt night time – or at any rate time to sleep – at the same hour at which most people would be thinking about stirring. They took a table off to one corner, sending Porthos to the innkeeper for food, drink and two rooms for the day.

“The others will meet us here later today,” Milady said to the group at large when he returned – “best that we get some sleep and leave a message with the landlord to inform us as soon as they arrive. We made good time and they have much more to arrange than we do.”

She dragged a beer mug to her thankfully, Athos noticed, settling into his pint with the greatest satisfaction he thought he had experienced since coming to this country. The beer was good anyway, rich and golden and having it after travelling non-stop all night made it taste like the best thing he had ever drank. He swallowed all the harder, watching Milady from under his eyelids, drinking deeply, putting the tankard down hard on the table and drying her mouth with the back of her hand more gracelessly than Porthos. There was a silence from them all in respect of the drink which lasted until the food arrived. Athos could not help but note that it was two of them who were supposed to be nobility that set into their food the most hungrily, and the pets who watched them for a moment, Aramis smiling faintly –

“You do know _you’re_ supposed to be _our_ masters don’t you?”

Milady did not deign to speak to him. Athos was reminded of the first time he had ever seen her eat, before she had learnt how to be a lady. He had been utterly charmed by it then; he still felt an air of that now. Porthos made a grunt that allowed Aramis to continue –

“You’d think you both suffered from lack of food in your lives. Honestly, aristocracy- no manners any of you.”

Porthos grunted again, smiling faintly at Aramis with tolerant affection, not telling him. Milady glared at him wearily and pulled her bowl just a little bit closer towards her as though, Athos thought, she was afraid someone might take it. For the millionth time he wished she had told him all the truths right from the start but this time he wished it so that he could have been spending every minute of his life since then making it better for her. Something just as painful as hunger spiked in his chest and he looked down at his bowl, eating in silence. Porthos was the first to finish –

“You think we should sleep, then? Is it safe?”

“Why would you even ask?” Aramis raised an eyebrow, yawning widely – “I could go on all day.”

“Do you _ever_ shut up?” Milady yawned too, as though competing for air – “Stand guard if you want, I’m going to sleep like the dead.”

“She’s smart,” Porthos nodded. “I won’t argue.” He yawned, rising as Athos and Aramis pushed away their bowls. As they headed towards the stairs Athos looked a silent question to Milady for a lead.

“With me,” she nodded and he did not argue, following without her having to take hold of the chain still looped around his neck.

The room they were shown to was simple for Vere, large enough for three with one double bed and a pet’s sleeping pallet underneath the window. Simple for Vere meant that even the sleeping pallet was ornately, abundantly cushioned and the bed looked as though it were made of feathers and silks, shining pinks and greens and highlights of blue and gold.

“We should –” Athos began, yawning himself now.

“Talk?” she finished archly. “Perhaps,” she nodded wearily – “But not now. Attend me.” She turned her back to him, loosening the lacings in her corset with her fingers to help him – “Please don’t be difficult, I just want to sleep.”

He opened his mouth to retort, to give her a snide _well, since you said please_ but thought better of it and did not question his own obedience, or why he then willingly got to his knees to help her with her boots when she sat on the side of the bed. As he put them aside he risked looking up at her. She looked pale, tired, face crumpled as though she were trying to think but sleep was crawling around her too heavily. He watched her pull the hair back from her face, tie it all up as she had it when they set out. She looked smaller, sagging in sleepiness, simple and heartbreakingly beautiful in just the loosely laced shirt and breeches. He wished he could tell her how beautiful she was like this. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wished he could ask her and tell her but instead he gestured to the pallet under the window –

“I’ll just –” he began.

“Yes,” she said, curling herself wearily under the bedsheet, moving slowly; he could feel all the aches in his body from riding all night sympathising with the aches in hers. He tried not to wonder if the aches that went deeper into him mirrored hers as well. “Do I need to chain you again?” _Please tell me I don’t_ her tone said exhaustedly.

“I won’t go anywhere,” he said, lying down, realising how tired he was as well, wondering, not for the first time, why he _wouldn’t_ just leave, frightened of the _not if you don’t want me to_ that almost came out of his stupid mouth. He pulled the curtains to above him, shutting out as much of the day as he could, settling slowly from all the aches in his back and thighs and head. She was so quiet he thought she had fallen asleep the instant her head had hit the pillow – he remembered that; how easily she had always been able to get to sleep, as though she could do it anywhere within the instant. He was just drifting off when he heard a sleepy, barely awake –

“Athos?”

His heart caught in his throat and he made a grunting sound to indicate he had heard. There was a pause so long he wondered if she was going to say anything after all.

“I – what I did last night – at the feast –” she paused again; he wondered if she was thinking what he was thinking – the feast in the great hall, his public humiliation – was that really only last night? “It wasn’t –” he could hear her struggling painfully with it – “I should not have done that.” He realised he was not breathing, that his chest was tight in the expectation of her apology or explanation. There was a bloated pause in which he felt she was thinking about saying more or waiting for his reply. But he could not think of a reply to give and she did not offer anything more. Finally he heard her exhale deeply – he was not sure if it was relief in saying as much as she had or regret in not saying more. A moment later he could hear the snuffling little breaths that came out of her indicating that the was really asleep this time and he felt himself following her, wondering if that had really been an apology or not.

__x__


	11. Chapter 11

 

**11.**

He was not sure how long he had slept, only that it had been deep, and he did not know at first what it was that had woken him, just that he woke startled with a vague sense of panic. It was warm and the faint, breezy blue and gold curtains were doing little to keep the sun out. It streamed in long gold line across him, across the floorboards, and washed over the end of the bed and the one shockingly naked foot he could see peeking out from under the thin sheet. He stared at that pale little foot a long time, before it twitched and he heard her whimper, heard her turn, twisting and fighting in her sleep. The covers had tangled themselves around her and she was thrashing inside them like a fish, landed and choking in a net. 

“ _Don’t –”_ she whispered – “ _Not again, no I can’t – you can’t –”_ Something he could not make out and then a low moan, like an injured animal sound building into a frantic growling scream. It was a scream like this, he realised that had woken him and was the reason he had come to consciousness primed for danger. She did not stop; the whimpers and screaming rose and fell like waves. He felt sure it had to be over soon but it was not, and he felt vile and crueller every moment for lying frozen still on his pallet and not just going to her, however sure he was that she would hate him for doing so.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said suddenly, and for a moment he thought  that she had woken, but she would not have said it the way she did if she had woken, so brokenly, he could hear her cracking, hear her start to cry messily and it was worse than the screaming – “I won’t - I’m sorry – yes anything – I won’t –” he could see the outline of her shaking as she cried more violently in her sleep than she would ever have allowed herself awake. He could not bear it any longer, and it felt like eavesdropping just to lie here unable to do anything but listen. It was too personal, he knew that without knowing even what exactly he was hearing – she would forgive him for hearing, for knowing, even less than for waking her. He got up, slowly, moving carefully so as not to startle her.

For a moment he dithered near her bedside, not sure if he should touch her, if he should just wake her from beside the bed – if he should speak to her – if he were going to say something, what would he say? He did not even know her name. He had the most terrible urge to laugh at this – he had never known her name. He knelt down gently but even as he did so she rolled over and away from him with a sudden sharp jerk of her body, not before he had seen her sleeping face crumpled and streaked with tears. He flailed helplessly, but she was still crying, face buried away from him into the pillow, hands pushing at the sheets, trying uselessly to get them off her. He took a deep breath that caught shuddering in his throat and got in carefully behind her.

His hand shook as he reached out slowly to place it on her shoulder; he closed his eyes, all but held his breath. There had been such a shocking lack of intimacy in the way she had touched his cock the day before but this felt somehow like overstepping something, like going too far. He could not care; her restless wretchedness was tearing at his chest. She went quiet when he touched her, very still like a paralyzed prey animal. He shifted in closer, reached a hand to her hair, pressing his face in to kiss the back of her head as he always had in the past – he remembered it with sudden painful clarity – she had often whimpered in her sleep, cried and said things he could not catch, but it had never been as violent as this and even then she would never tell him why, laughing it off in the morning as though his concern for her was something strange. He was so caught up in the memory he did not feel her hand move, sliding under the pillow away from him. The suddenness of her movement next, coming after such a fragile stillness was almost more startling than the blade cutting into his shoulder.

“Get off me!” she shrieked, twisting viciously, knife in hand – “Get off get off get off!” her teeth were bared and her eyes blazing. She was like a wildcat under attack, all claws and hissing fury, the knife held high in her hand after first wild slash that had caught him in the shoulder – “I’ll take the other one too -” she hissed so nonsensically that it was only then that Athos realised she was still asleep even now. She had leaned up over him, and he, despite all knowledge of how better to protect himself, had rolled straight over onto his back, hands either side of his head on the pillow. He watched her more than warily. She blinked and her forehead scrunched up tight, her face contorting with the dysphoria of becoming awake. She frowned, turning to look at the knife in her hand, at him and at herself, rising up out of the sheets like a Fury, slowly lowering her hand.

“What are _you_ doing here?” she scowled, sinking back down just a little. He did not move –

“You –” he had to be careful, he knew it, he was utterly certain he could not be as careful as he ought to be – “You cried out in your sleep – I wanted to – I used to – I –” it occurred to him like a blessed revelation that nothing would help her just now more than being able to be angry with him – “I couldn’t sleep for all the noise,” he finished, trying to make it sound almost accusing.

She barked out a rough _huh_ of a breath, nodded rapidly, her breathing slowing steadily and a shaky half smile fighting its way to her lips –

“I’m so sorry to have disturbed you,” she said with a faint, almost amiable nastiness though her face softened seconds later, glancing down at his shoulder which was running blood into the pale bedsheets – “Did I do that?” she frowned.

“I just wanted to help,” he tried to shrug. It hurt – “Didn’t know you slept with _that_ for company. Stab first, ask questions later, is that it?”

“It’s best,” her eyes narrowed, daring him to probe further. He did not. She sighed deeply –

“Stay there.”

She got out of the bed – he noticed she did not actually put down the knife – and went to where she had left a small bag in the corner with her cloak and weapons. He heard material ripping, the sounds of a bottle or jar being opened and she came back with strips of fabric in her hand, one of them liberally doused in something that smelled pungently of herbs and honey.

“Stay still,” she said, taking the damp strip in hand – “This will probably –” she pressed it quickly to his shoulder; he screamed, writhed, clutching the sheets in his fists – “Sting,” she finished, raising an eyebrow caustically.

“Bitch,” he grunted.

“Oh please,” she started tying the second strip to fix it tighter, he was sure, than she needed to – “You have only yourself to blame for this.”

“Of course,” he groaned and then, somehow unable to resist – “I woke myself up with my own screaming. Of course.”

“Shut up,” she tied another knot savagely “There. It won’t be very good. This isn’t exactly my area. Ask Aramis to check it again in the morning.”

Athos suppressed the urge to point out that the morning was almost done, before he realised that he really was not ready to be as awake as that yet.

“Anyway I’m still tired,” she said, startlingly voicing his own thoughts, shaking the tangled sheets out impatiently with an air that said too loudly that she could not imagine how they had come to get this tangled in the first place. She wriggled back beneath them, slipped the knife back under her pillow and rolled away from him. She lay there very still, breathing carefully, studiously ignoring him until he started to move to go back to his spot below the window.

“Athos,” she said then, in a tight emotionless little voice that he could not read one bit. He paused, half sat up, one hand on his stinging shoulder. He made a questioning _hmm_ sound, looking at her over his uninjured shoulder for a clue- any sign of what she wanted or was feeling. She gave none and the silence stretched out for a long time, he could feel the tension coming off her almost thrumming across the bed. There seemed to be some battle going on in her that he could not fathom the need for.

“Stay,” she said finally, tightly, so flatly that he could not tell quite if it were an order or a plea; there was perhaps just the hint of a question in it. He sank back down, relieved, something like hope fluttering in his chest to hear her ask this even without adding anything to it as he could feel, almost hear her thinking about doing. She felt wooden as he turned to her, as he had tried to originally, taking her shoulder gently, pressing his face into her hair, letting her be the one to wriggle back if she wanted to, against him. At first she did not and he could feel her, stiff as a board as the battle still raged. Finally, after a moment that seemed to go on forever she moved, imperceptibly at first, back, shifting into the curve of him that was made to take her, settling her back in place against his chest.

This time when she fell asleep he could not feel of hear any sign that she was dreaming but all the same he did not go back to sleep again, ready to be there if the nightmares came back. He wondered what his meant, what would come of it, in the morning and for the days that followed. Mostly he drowned, warmly and pliantly in the scent of her, the familiar feel of her body, the tickle and smell of her hair in his face. He felt somehow better than he had done in years, remembered the worst times, those first years after she was gone, how he would wake in the night feeling her lying just like this, smell her and feel her and hear her breathing as he had done for so short a time it should not have imprinted so deeply inside him as the only natural state to sleep in. It was worse than nightmares, that moment of pure pleasure when he woke feeling her against his chest and then the cold plummeting glissando towards emptiness when he realised she was not there after all, that she would never be there again. The feeling had coated his insides every morning with a bitterness only drink could begin to take away, or at any rate mask. And now, having coming so completely – he had thought – to hate her – here she was after so long.

In her sleep she was no different from the wife he remembered; only her nightmares, as he had heard when he woke up before, seemed to have become worse. He wondered what it was, if it was something that had happened since he banished her or if something had brought her old horrors back more sharply into focus. There was no way, no way at all that he could ask her. Even when she had loved him she had never told him anything- what hope did he have now. He could only stay, as she had asked, watch her as she had not and swear in his newly living chest that he would not let anything hurt her. He stayed like that- he did not know how many hours, until a knock came on the door to let them know the others had arrived.

He moved back quickly as soon as she woke up. She snapped into wakefulness as quickly as she fell asleep, and he was not prepared to face another swish of her knife. She scowled at him, eyes slanting his way and in a split second of clarity he knew she remembered everything and was going to lie to him completely –

“Whatever are you doing here?” she feinted with a faint smile on her face, sitting up and beginning instantly to reach for the rest of her clothes; she had slept in most of them – “I’m certain I never said you could.”

“I’m so sorry,” he parried, dryly – “How presumptuous of me.”

“It doesn’t set a precedent, you know.” He could not see her face, she had turned away from him to brush her hair and tie it back neatly with very little fuss – “In case you thought –”

“I thought nothing,” he said quickly – “I was just –”

She was not so cruel this time as to let him flail, gropingly for an alibi, snapping in quickly with –

“Well, don’t do it again.”

“I wouldn’t want to.”

“And don’t think I said anything to you last night either.” She added smartly, in a high, almost sing – song voice, casually dismissing any moments of weaknesses she might have displayed in all of the last twelve hours as though it were a board she could just flip, hiding the dirt beneath a side she had scrubbed down thoroughly in advance.

He did not reply, just smiled faintly, not really sure why he was so happy, not looking at her until she was just outside the door to the room, where he took her arm, serious for a moment –

“Anne –” he began, a hundred important words clamouring to be the first out of his mouth. He wanted to address something _anything,_ the nightmares, their proximity over the last few hours, the gash in his shoulder, her not – quite – apology. He wanted to go back and talk about the last few days, the shock of being thrown together like this in the first place. He wanted to go back further to how it had been and how it had ended and how he had struggled for five years to live without her and only managed to exist at best, to ask her how she had survived and how she had lived, to go back and back and back, to the time they were together and before it to everything she had never told him and he had never dared to ask. And just for a moment he saw all the questions in his eyes reflected and understood in hers and she stared at him like an animal frozen on a night time road, knowing how much it all needed to be asked and answered and hurting with the knowledge and –

“Don’t,” she said, visibly afraid, and shook her head. Just for a moment, close together in front of the door he thought crazily that they might kiss but when they did not and she swerved briskly out of the room and into the corridor – he realised with almost as much happiness as if they _had_ kissed that she had not corrected him this time when he said her name.

__x__


	12. Chapter 12

**12.**

The morning had only just begun and human interaction already seemed like more than she could pleasantly deal with. The next logical step, then, was to decide to leave pleasantness out of things. She wished she could have some time alone; it was a shock suddenly, after the past few years in the peace and quiet of the countryside, to be thrown into almost continual contact with other humans. She wished she could at least have slept alone but on the back of the wish came a need to query herself as to whether or not that was true. _I have become so good at lying I can do it to myself without blinking_. She sighed to herself, curling her hands around a tankard more protectively than she realised she was doing until she caught Athos watching her fingers. It unnerved her; the way he seemed to be able to read what her most innocuous gestures could mean. That he could see when she was tense by the way her fingers tightly interlaced, knew if she was angry before she had even given vent to the feeling – if she had been going to at all. She wondered how much he could see and how it was that he seemed to so often guess her correctly.

 _Did_ she wish she had slept alone? She would have had the dreams anyway, she had been having them for years and with the events of last night throwing everything back sharply into focus, throwing her as they had not managed to throw her before – she supposed she could not have avoided the nightmares. She only wished she could have suffered them in silence and that her sleeping body had not betrayed her. She was furious at herself, skin prickly and ready to shoot barbs at anyone who came too close and yet –

What was it about right now that had made them so much worse than usual? Her dreams in the past had been vague and uncomfortable, something she could discard afterwards just as she thought she had discarded the events themselves. What factor was different now? Her wandering, slowly wakening mind settled on Athos. It was somehow his fault, his presence, his – his _concern,_ that was what it was, not just last night but the way he had looked at her that morning when the sun was coming up – it had reminded her almost of – but that was silly, she pushed it away. She could not. He was still doing it now. She wished he would stop – It reminded her of how he had looked at her in the beginning five years ago, a hundred years ago in another life. She had not thought she could be that person again, she was sure that she was not. The idea that she could have been – could have been (Anne) that person – it threw her mind and her memory into an uproar. It was too much like something she wanted to think about, wanted to be. _It’s not about what you want,_ she remembered _it will never be about what you want._ She wanted to shake her head and dislodge it all – to do away with the girl who had been told those things, to dispatch Anne like she thought she had done already. But here she was with Rochefort’s men on their tail and Athos even closer, the embodiment of the worst memories and the best. She was not sure which she wanted to run from the fastest.

She risked a glance up and saw the tail end of his looking quickly away. She could feel something in her wanting to soften and perhaps that was the most frightening thing of all – the _and yet_ that she had not been able to finish; the fact that it had felt _good_ when he stayed with her, that her weakness in asking had produced such an undeniably pleasant sensation, the feel of him beside her and the illusion – because it could only be an illusion – that he could keep her safe. It had almost been as though he cared. That was it, the worst of what she saw in his eyes – beyond the hurt and the confusion – he still looked at her in the way that had once confused her so pleasantly and now just confused her - like she was worth something. Like she could be something. Something good. The possibility choked her; she drank fast and put her tankard down hard. She tried to listen intently to what Constance and the young man – d’Artagnan he said his name was – were telling them.

“You’re coming with us?” she arched an eyebrow – “is that really necessary?”

“By order of the Queen,” Constance replied promptly, glancing at her, she could tell with vague but not yet vocalised animosity. “So, yes.”

“And you?” She turned the raised eyebrow on d’Artagnan who was not, as far as she had judged  in ten minutes of not really listening to him, particularly prepossessing. “Coming along for the ride?”

“Ah c’mon,” Aramis swooped down to the table, clapping d’Artagnan on the shoulder in what she was sure was too comradely a manner for such a brief acquaintance. “The more the merrier, am I right?”

He pushed tankards across the table to Athos and Porthos and another to d’Artagnan; they all raised them in a vague, sleepy salute –

“One for all, eh?” Porthos grinned. Milady swore, muttering under her breath, catching Constance in an eye roll and affording her the vaguest hint of a smile.

“Shall we get on with it?” Constance rose from the table, prompting the men to start drinking fast – “It’s a five day ride for Aquitart and we don’t want to make it more.”

Milady opened her mouth to ask when she had took charge of the party but since she had said nothing more than what she would have said herself anyway, thought better of it and they headed from the tavern, leaving the men to follow.

-x-

The early afternoon sun beat down on them as they rode, albeit more calmly than the frantic gallop of last night and soon enough they fell into groups and places along the road stretching out, Constance and d’Artagnan falling behind, their horses laden down with the largest part of the camping equipment, the others fluctuating in the middle and Milady always riding out ahead; _taking the lead_ she told herself rather than admit that she just did not want to have to talk to anyone. She was (wary) irritated by the camaraderie that seemed to have sprung up between them, unsure of what it was for or how it all worked and had decided, for the moment at least, to give it as wide a berth as she could manage. And she was more aware of Athos’s continual presence than she would have liked to be – not only of where he was at any given time but of how he seemed to always be trying to keep up with her. She suspected he might be trying to ride alongside her, that he would like to talk to her considering all the time that they had and would have between here and Aquitart. She knew, somewhere inside, that he was right to want to, but she was not ready for that. She did not feel just now, as though she would ever be ready.

Three hours of riding later and the heat was becoming an unavoidable burden. The men, she noticed, had started to strip off as they rode and were in their shirtsleeves by the time they reached the stream- and were starting to loosen those. The temptation to strip down likewise was almost unbearably strong; she could feel herself sweating gruesomely inside her corset and could feel the boning pressing into her skin, leaving a mark she knew would show later. It would have been easy enough to go down to a shirt like the rest of them – even Constance had given in – so why did it feel akin to taking off one’s armour in the middle of a battle? She could not.

They all rode straight into the stream however, water flying beneath the horses hooves, spraying each other, Porthos laughing loudly and she could tell it was all they could do not to jump off their horses and into one of the deeper pools of water. d’Artagnan _did_ jump in as the rest of them stopped on the bank to let the horses drink, fill their water bottles and eat a little of the food Constance had packed into the saddle bags. Porthos groaned happily, stretching out on the grass, with a chunk of cheese in one hand and a flask of – was that ale? – in the other?

“This is the life,” he announced – “Sun, food, water. Yeah. I could get used to this.”

“ _This is the life?”_ Milady squinted at him in the sun, leaning against a tree with an apple in her hand, not ready to get as comfortable as he was for fear she would not stand up again if she did – “You do realise we’re on a dangerous top secret mission to stop a dangerous threat against the peace of two countries?”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Porthos half shrugged, half conceded – “But –” he looked at her, eyes dark and sparkling – “It’s sort of fun though, isn’t it?”

She rolled her eyes but could not help a faint smile. If only she had fallen in love with Porthos, how much easier everything might have been rather than – she stopped herself shocked, glancing over at Athos guiltily. He was sat not far off with a flask and an apple, pretending not to be watching her with the sun, not trapped awkwardly in his eyes like it was in hers but flashing off them like a flash on the water, bright and gold and almost kingfisher blue. They both looked quickly away on impact and she scowled down at the grass, confused and angry with herself. _What nonsense,_ she thought _what was I thinking? Love._ The dismissive snort with which she imbued the syllable in her mind rang hollow between her ears.

“Shall we move on?” she said archly, not waiting for a reply but heading down the bank to retrieve her horse as Constance moved to do the same with d’Artagnan.

“Of all the idiots I had to pretend to be in love with,” Milady heard, and Constance, on her way back, caught her eye with a grin and a half eye roll and muttered loudly –

“ _Men”._

She smiled back, remembering saying the exact same thing in the exact same way so short a time before. She caught herself again – was this _female solidarity?_ Was it _friendliness?_ She had no knowledge of and a great deal of suspicion towards both of these things and it made her prickle uncomfortably as she swung back onto her horse.

A lot of things seemed to be doing this to her today, she thought, riding ahead again, faster to clear her head, alongside the bank. It was cooler down by the stream and there was a slight breeze that felt as though it was clearing her head. First Athos, then Porthos and now Constance – making her contemplate things she had no understanding of and making her nervous and prickly all over her skin. There was no need, she told herself, no need at all. She made herself laugh at the idea that Athos could affect her in any soft and agreeable manner after everything he had done. She had not forgotten. When she turned round and felt that prickling sensation looking at him riding behind her in the stream, shirt dampening from spray and an easy seat on his horse – she raised a hand to her throat to remind herself why she could not be feeling like it almost felt she was feeling. It was the heat, that was all, the sun and the constant riding making her skin prickle. She should have had a bath back at the inn when they had the chance.

She watched the river beside her as they rode, the patterns the sun made like the markings on exotic animals, golden and tawny and peridot in the light, rippling over the stones and the many little whorls made by the horses hooves as they passed. One of the horses moved faster through the stream, kicking spray on either side like wings, the droplets rainbow in the sunshine, white wings of water cooling them all. Everyone yelled at d’Artagnan in mock dismay though there was not a one of them who was genuinely sad to be cooled with the spray, Constance especially had taken to chiding him so heartily Milady was no longer entirely sure they were faking being in love.

“Don’t do that!” she said – “You’ll slip and hurt your horse and damned if I’m having you up on mine.”

But in the end it was not d’Artagnan or his horse that slipped, it was Athos. Half an hour upstream Milady had ridden well into the lead, by taking the bank whilst the others went down the centre of the stream. Athos had kept close behind her all the while following the bank but never quite catching up and finally she heard the splash and thud of his horse heading back into the stream to cool down. She did not see what happened next, if he had tried to speed up when he should not have of if his horse and taken fright but the next thing she heard was a whinny and a crashing splashing sound, and turned her horse to see that his horse had gone down suddenly on one knee pitching Athos over its head and into the shallow water. It picked itself up painfully and limped to the bank, leaving Athos sat in the middle of the stream looking stunned and furious. She rode up beside him and looked down, established that he was largely unhurt, and raising an eyebrow in defiance of the fact that she had cared enough to turn round –

“Having fun down there?”

She did not immediately move to help him to his feet, waiting instead until the others had caught up.

“What’s going on?” Porthos asked.

“Athos, why are you sat in the river?” added Aramis in that tone of innocence designed only to provoke.

“It is not for my own amusement,” Athos groaned – “Is one of you going to help me up or are you all just going to stare?”

Everybody raised an amused eyebrow at everyone else.

“But watching you struggle is so much more fun,” Milady could not help but grin, Porthos and d’Artagnan even joined in the chuckling. In the end d’Artagnan got down to help Athos from his feet before leading his horse to the bank to take a look at the other. Milady could not help notice a softer smile than she had yet seen from Constance as she watched him talk gently to the shaken animal.

“Looks like he lost a shoe in the water,” d’Artagnan said, rising, after looking for a long time at the horse’s leg – “And his leg is hurt a little from the stumble – nothing I can’t fix but not here on the road. When we rest tonight I’ll fix it, but for now –” he looked at Athos with a  mixture of sympathy and amusement – “You’ll have to ride double with someone, no help for it.”

“No,” Athos said stubbornly, clearly knowing well enough who he was going to have to ride with – “He’ll be fine just for a few hours, surely?”

“I didn’t say otherwise to exercise my mouth, Athos.”

“That’s a first,” Constance muttered aside – “Well he’s not riding with me,” she added.

“Nor me,” Aramis was already cantering on ahead up the bank – “he’s all wet.”

“Too heavy,” Porthos joined in – “S’no good.”

“Oh for god’s sake.” Milady groaned. “Athos, get on the horse.”

Athos began to move to his horse, not understanding her.

“Not your horse,” she rolled her eyes – “Get on the back of mine.”

“You get on the back.”

“I am _not_ clasping myself to you like some damsel in distress, Athos.”

“Oh, but I’m supposed to?”

“Don’t be such a damned baby. This is my horse, and I _will_ re-attach that chain and have you run alongside me if that is what you prefer”

Athos got reluctantly up behind her, grumbling under his breath but no longer loud enough for the others to hear, they were already amused enough by his predicament.

She rode on, slower than before, now encumbered with a still drying Athos, an unavoidable weight against her back.

“Don’t hold me so tight,” she grumbled, when he clasped her waist like the damsel she had just accused him of being. He let go as though she burned him. She could feel her own face getting hot, beyond the warmth of the sun.

“You _do_ have to hold on a bit though,” she sighed – “I’m not picking you up _again_ if you fall off. I can just leave you.”

“You wouldn’t,” Athos mumbled quietly. He would not have dared that a few days ago. She almost smiled. His breath was warm against the back of her neck, she could feel it tickle her ears. He was too close, too gentle, too _pleasant._

“Don’t count on it,” she grumbled.

“I’m not just your baggage, you know.”

“Oh Athos,” she sighed, it was almost affectionate – “You are absolutely my baggage. You have no idea.”

The silence in which they rode on was almost amiable, if increasingly charged. As the afternoon got cooler and the closeness became less uncomfortable from the heat it began to bother her in an entirely new way. She was glad he could not see her face; she could feel herself growing flushed. She could barely understand it. She felt almost dizzy, girlish, embarrassed of what they could both feel happening and were trying tensely to ignore. The charge between them was like static before a thunderstorm. She shifted uncomfortably in the saddle.

“Don’t do that,” he grumbled.

“Do what?” she shifted again purely from him asking her not to. This time he groaned softly.

“ _Please,_ ” he whispered, a more heartfelt plea than any she could have wrung out of him by force – “Don’t.”

She frowned, shifted back a little. Oh. _That_ was why. She wondered when it had happened, how long he had been like this, hard and clearly suffering with it against her back. She wondered even more why her body seemed to be responding, a deep core of lust starting to burn in her from a fire she thought she had put out forever. _If I look back now I am lost,_ she thought but she felt her head turn as though magnetised. He was looking for it, looking at her, with the same lost, hopelessly hopeful expression as she could feel stinging her own. She felt as though the mask she worked so hard upon was melting from her face and when she saw his lip tremble she knew that he had seen it, seen right through her and nothing she could do. He touched her cheek gently with three fingertips. She could remember the last time he had touched her like that; it was not an exaggeration to say it had been a lifetime ago. She felt as though she would humiliate herself and cry. He brushed her cheek as if in preparation for it.

“ _Anne,_ ” he whispered.

“Yes –” she whispered it so quietly she could barely hear herself – “Yes – please –”

His face was so close to hers she could feel his breath, the prickle of his stubble, his forehead just touching hers and then a horse clattered up beside them and they snapped away guiltily. The others. There were others. They had ridden on ahead.

“It’s getting dark,” d’Artagnan announced – “And we’ve found a good place to set up camp. Everything all right here?” He squinted at them both in sudden curiosity, unsure of what he had just galloped in on.

“Fine,” she said, brightly, tossing her head a little. She could feel Athos exhale deeply, face lowered so as not to meet anyone in the eye – “Excellent. We’ll help set everything up. You take a look at that horse”. For a few moments they talked about the practicalities of pitching camp, before re-joining the others. Athos was off the horse the moment they slowed down and she was left, taking her time over hitching the animal to a tree, resting her face against his flank until the hammering in her chest slowed down and she could join the others.

__x__

**The amazing cock blocker that is d’Artagnan. Round 1: d’Art: 1, Milathos: 0!**


	13. Chapter 13

**13.**

She felt somehow more comfortable under cover of dark. The sky was thick and velvety, streaked with grey cloud like silky threads. They had brought a chill with them and a threat of rain that seemed ominous considering the lightness of the three tents and the transience of their entire camp. But the dark made it easier to wear her own face, or at any rate relax the mask just a little without fear of being so easily seen and understood. Athos especially was posing more of a threat than she had been quite prepared for and she sat apart from the group just a little, watching and considering.

They had found a spot for the camp fire in the middle of a curving pile of boulders and were perched, all of them in a rough circle; Aramis and Porthos sharing a large rock nearest the fire, D’Artagnan and Constance on their own individual stones almost opposite. Athos was seated just a little apart from them and as far – Milady noticed – from her as it was possible to be. He was right in the line of smoke that breezed away from the fire, the sparks flicking up into the dark and towards his face. He was watching them as though mesmerised, uncaring if they burned him even.

The group was quiet and relaxed now after all of the earlier fights about who did what towards the camp and the cooking. In the end d’Artagnan had been declared exempt from either as the injured horse was his priority, Constance, who could not, as d’Artagnan declared loudly, “cook to save anybody’s life,” had put herself in charge of assembling the tents, Athos moving in to help her as though subservience was genuinely in his nature – that, Milady thought, or he was just desperate to occupy himself in any way away from her. Porthos had fixed the fire whilst Aramis scampered around the riverbank and the nearby woods in the fading light looking for edible vegetation with which to bolster the stew he was assembling out of their mostly dried supply.

She was the only one who had found herself at a loose end and, conscious of getting in anyone’s way and therefore having to make pleasantries, had gone down to the river to make some attempt at bathing. She had re-joined the group half wishing she hadn’t bothered and not sure how the clothes she had been unwilling to take off were ever going to dry or how she would get to sleep in this sticky, damp state. She found herself sitting more companionably with the others than she had wished, just to give herself a chance of drying off by the fire.

“Thanks for the help,” Constance had remarked with a raised eyebrow on her return.

“Where _have_ you been?” Porthos eyed her with gentle suspicion, or it may have been concern.

“Unlike some of you.” she replied caustically, “I’ve been ensuring that I can’t be tracked by our enemies by smell alone. Something it might be useful if the rest of you attempted,” she scrunched her nose up meaningfully.

“Dunno what you mean,” Porthos grinned, raising an arm and sniffing himself ostentatiously – “I smell great.”

“That is actually a lie though. isn’t it?” Aramis made a show of leaning as far away from him as their single rock would allow – “I on the other hand –”

“Have no right to talk” Constance cut in – “Honestly, between you and d’Artagnan –”

“Oh don’t compare me to him,” Aramis could not have acted more offended. “When he joined us earlier, I thought it was the horse come to sit with us.”

“Which is fine now, thank you all for noticing,” d’Artagnan grinned – “Just ride her gently tomorrow, Athos?”

Athos looked up at them as if only just noticing they were there and nodded a quiet thanks to d’Artagnan before slipping mentally away again. She wondered where he was just now.

“Let’s face it, none of us smell like roses just now,” Porthos pacified, “’Cept of course Milady here. More stew?” he got up and there was a general chatter as stew was eaten and commented upon – much to Aramis’s credit, and a genuine pleased murmuring went around even from Athos when Porthos finally produced the ale supply they all suspected he had been harbouring all along.

“Well don’t get used to it. This is likely the last in a while,” he added as they clinked mugs together over the fire.

There was a warm silence between them for a while, filled with the crackle of fire and the setting down of dishes.

“Feels like someone should sing,” d’Artagnan broke it finally – “Constance –?”

“Not bloody likely!” Constance spluttered.

“I could –” Porthos began. A fight broke out as Aramis hastened to stop him. Milady watched them, smiling faintly with an amusement that faded the more companionable and pleasant things became.

“Well this campfire business is all very nice,” she said suddenly, more sharply than she had even quite meant to – “But we are on a mission here, and I’m going to sleep.” She got up abruptly and stalked off, wondering why her head was thrumming with confusion. She went to her tent and sat on her bed roll for some time wondering what the matter was. It came down to so many things. Athos. Rochefort. The fact that she did not want to sleep for fear of dreams. The way the group seemed to be bonding and how they all, especially Porthos, seemed to want to include her. This confused her most of all. Considering everything else it seemed a trivial concern and one she ought to just put away. But she could not get their faces out of her mind, the way Porthos looked at her as though he cared, the way Constance had started to smile at her as though willing to overcome her dislike and give her a chance. Well she did not want that chance and she did not need them to care.

And then there was Athos. Worst of all was trying to figure out what it was that he wanted, who he was looking at when he looked at her, what he was thinking when he was not. She was not sure which state was worse.

She thought of all their faces as they sat around the fire, bathed in shadows and reds and golds. They had looked warm with the smiles that weaved between them, comforted by one another’s presence and forced into trust by the acts of sharing food and drink and words. A memory rose unbidden of a family glimpsed through a window one grey early evening in Aquitart. She had not meant to look, not needed to see, but something about the light and the way they smiled had made the girl outside stop and stare. She remembered almost feeling the safety and warmth of their togetherness like a hug in that room; so close to where she stood and so utterly unattainable. She had got a sense that this was what _family_ meant – these talks and squabbles and affectionate silliness - though she had no basis for comparison, and she had felt that sense again just now around the camp fire. Once again she had felt herself almost within, but ultimately without that sacred circle of safety, and when her eyes started to sting with thinking about it she blamed the smoke and the pungent smell of the fire. Suddenly she could not stand sitting here alone any longer, with their voices drifting along the night’s air currents muted by distance and canvas and crickets. She had to be with them. She had to _not_ be with them.

She slipped out from under the tent flap like a shadow, like a thief, like an assassin. All of the comparisons comforted her, reminded her of who she was, who she should be, not a companion, a wife, a part of them, a _friend;_ just a shadow lurking in the shade of the light they all threw out, all of them except her, even Athos, he should have been more a part of that circle but she had tainted him, her shadow fell across his face even when he was sat in the circle of light. She saw Constance and d’Artagnan pass nearby her on the way to their tent but they did not see her. Good. She could still do this. She took strength from being a shadow, from her invisibility; she made her way back to the edge of the fire, though by now there was only Porthos and Aramis still sat close on their boulder, casting one long shadow between them. She fell back, beneath the deeper shadow of a tree, the last light of the fire stopping centimetres from the toe of her boots.

“Why do you think she’s like that?” Aramis’s voice came murmuring out of the silence, low and faint but clear enough from her distance only metres off with the breeze her way.

“Who? like what?” Porthos’s voice.

“ _Milady de Winter –_ or whoever she is. You say she’s not as bad as she seems, but she acts as though she hates everyone. Suspicious of everything she is – as though – as though everything and everyone is just out to hurt her.”

“Seems to me,” Porthos spoke slowly, clearly thinking it out as he spoke – “Seems to me that when people feel like that it’s usually because everything always has been.”

“Huh” Aramis lapsed into silence for a moment – “But –” he began again after a moment – “She’s nobility isn’t she? How bad can that be?”

“ _I’m_ nobility,” Porthos shrugged, it was a large enough gesture to be visible even in the shadows – “Doesn’t mean I always was.”

“Where _does_ she come from, then? I mean –she’s not _exactly_ like you, surely?”

She held her breath, fingers unconsciously digging into the bark of the tree. He had _promised_ her he would not tell. Not that she had imagined it was true, not that she had trusted it, not for a moment, of course not but – but she held her breath all the same. It did not matter. She did not like him, and she was nothing to him, Aramis was his lover, his other half, they were _perfect_ – of _course_ he would tell.

“A lady’s secrets are her own,” Porthos said, unexpectedly, shrugging again. “Not for me to say, love. Best we just help where we can, try and make things better, isn’t that what we do?”

She swallowed hard, and stifled a scream as the felt someone brush against her beneath the tree, and a voice in her ear –

“Is there _anyone_ you respect enough not to spy on?”

She jumped, brushed at her eyes angrily, heart leaping to her throat as she whipped round taking a step back.

“What are _you_ doing here?”

“Apparently I could always ask you the same question.” Athos took a step backwards, away from her vehement hiss of anger.

“I _wasn’t_ spying. I wanted –” She bit her lip in frustration. It was true, she had not meant to spy, she had not known _what_ she wanted. She had wanted to re-join the circle, she had not been able to. It had seemed in a huge lapse of logic that listening in was a good enough but then she had not been expecting them to have been talking about her, least of all to have been talking about her with what sounded like kindness and compassion. She did not trust either of those things, barely knew them even, and compassion especially made her feel shaky beneath her layers of armour and the fortifications she had built around herself. She did not want to think of herself as someone who needed such a sentiment and could not imagine herself as someone who deserved it.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she finished coldly, beginning to walk away, back towards the tent before the others noticed them. She had gone only a little distance when Athos grabbed her arm, held her back, his voice cracking on the word –

“Anne –”

“ _Stop_ that,” she shook him off – “I’m not. I can’t be. I don’t –” _I don’t know who I am_. It would have been too much. “Why were _you_ spying on them?”

“I wasn’t spying on them.”

She peered at him, eyes widened as she realised.

“You were spying on _me,”_ she nodded – “Why? You weren’t even looking at me at – dinner.” _At dinner_ seemed an odd way to put it but she could think of no other. She fought back a crazy urge to ask why he had _not_ been looking at her then.

“I _can’t,”_ he hissed, a desperate whisper like poison caught in his teeth – “I can’t think. I can’t – I deserve this,” he looked down ashamed, and somehow she hated it. She had wanted nothing more than to see him shamed but somehow not like this.

“What do you mean?”

“If this is your revenge then take it,” he still did not look at her – “Because I killed you once as surely as you are killing me now.”

“You didn’t –” she sighed, reconsidered – “If you did try to kill me it was incompetently done,” she rectified.

“I wanted –” he looked up at her slowly, eyes brimming and red. There was so much he had wanted he could not continue – “I never wanted any of this. I have been living a nightmare since you went away.”

She let out a breath in a vindictive, astounded _ha,_ the fragile pity she had almost felt for him shattering before it could even solidify; even though his face fell in horror at the way his words had come out she could not let it go.

“ _You’ve_ been living a nightmare? You? Why is that, Athos? Why do you possibly imagine that could be? Because you killed me, or because you failed? Perhaps because you spectacularly managed both? Your wife is dead, yes, you made sure of that, but I’m still here Athos! I’m still fucking here and I have been able to say that all my life no matter who has tried to make it otherwise. You _dare_ blame me for _going away?_ You _banished_ me! You sold me to Vere the moment you were done with me just like –” She stopped herself speaking but she could not stop herself shaking. _Just like I have been bought and sold my entire adult life._ She could not say it, could not risk his sympathy, sympathy would assault her all over again but the words had hovered so close behind her lips that they could both almost hear them and Athos, for almost hearing them, could not look at her. The silence that stretched out between them tugged at her chest until it felt as though her ribs would break from it. The tension in the silence was pouring acid down her throat.

“What do you want, Athos?” She sighed in a weary voice, running a hand across her face just to feel it again after the numbness of her anger – “How do you imagine this might go?”

“I want –” it seemed, she thought wearily to be his mantra. She could feel him grasping for something out of everything that he wanted that he could safely voice – “Can’t we start again? ”

“Start _what?”_ she sneered – “Go through all of it again just to end up like before? No. We can’t start again.”

“I can’t –” his chest heaved with the effort of it – “All that time I tried to forget you. I tried to live without you. I tried to hate you. I couldn’t forget, I couldn’t live. I hated you, yes, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to kill you that first night in Vere –”

“Trust me the feeling was mutual,” she muttered.

“But I couldn’t,” he went on steadily – “And you didn’t kill me. I think –” he swallowed and went on, daring – “I think if you were going to kill me you would have done it already.”

“Don’t be so sure,” but the words sounded hollow even to her.

“I’m not,” he agreed – “But I am sure that however much you can survive, I am not that strong. Without you, I can’t –”

He stopped. She sighed. The trees rattled around them. She was glad for all the night time sounds that hid their words from the people nearby.

“So you say,” she said slowly – “We could start again. As if nothing had ever happened. As though I was just a girl and you were just a boy and we could what? Get to know each other? Kiss and court like children? Find a new field to run in as though we never touched before? Never look at the marks we left on each other? Can you see it? Really? Because I thought I was the liar. not you.”

Athos sighed; she did not need him to reply in words, the way he looked at her so tragically, she could not even be angry with him anymore and worst of all found herself wanting to apologise for being so harsh. His eyes, searching her face helplessly, were almost spilling their tears.

“No,” she sighed – “We can’t. You can’t look at me as though I’m her again and I can’t just forget and run into your arms however much I –” she bit the tip of her tongue so hard it hurt her. She had to stop this, stop these words from running like a horse out of control, damaging itself with its mad careening more than any of the things it ran into.

“What then?” he asked her in that broken voice that seemed to hope more than imagine she had all the answers she did not have – “What do we do now?”

She closed her eyes. Listened for a few moments to the leaves and the crickets and the tent flap she had left loose, buffeting like a sail out at sea.

“We go to bed,” she said finally, decidedly. “We continue the mission as planned.”

“And then?”

“That’s enough. For now that’s enough.”

She did not say _it has to be_ but they both heard it all the same.

__x__


	14. Chapter 14

**14.**

“I’ll stay out here. Someone should keep watch.”

Athos stopped at the entrance to their tent, wondering who he was going to need to hurt for the decision to bring just the three two-sleeper tents. One look at the outside of that small space convinced him quickly enough in the wake of all that had just gone between them that he would not be able to bear a night in such close quarters with both so much and so little space between them.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You need to sleep.” She pushed past him into the tent, her tone brooking no argument. He followed her leadenly with a sinking heart and rising need. She had been so beautiful in the firelight he could not look at her. The light had fallen in a glowing, hellish halo around her hair, shone redly in her eyes and painted her skin a dancing smoky swirl of gold and red. He could see her moving differently in the dark, her body relaxing to the company she was in in a way he was not sure she even realised she was doing. He could see the line of her lips tense and nervous in the face of their tentatively forming family and the darting of her eyes as she thought and planned, always trying to keep one step ahead of the rest of them, planning her next move rather than thinking fully upon her current position. It would never occur to her _not_ to be arming herself for the next attack. He wished it was not necessary, tried to imagine a world in which she might feel safe, remembered with the familiar wash of guilt that he might have given it to her – _had_ given it to her only to snatch it back so roughly the mark would be forever imprinted upon her throat.

He wished, squeezing himself into the overly small space of the tent, that he had been able to find a moment, it need not even have been long, to deal with the painful ache of his need for her. He had thought it had been unbearable just riding behind her, feeling her body against his, her hair in his face, being able to smell her, feel her warmth, the beat of her heart clamouring against her ribs. It had been awful and splendid and he was choked half to death with this lust, half new and half remembered. He had always wanted her beyond reason or any kind of moderation. It had always frightened him. He remembered the constant state of needing her, of knowing that a lifetime inside her would never satisfy this hunger. He had not imagined for a moment it could get worse. He did not trust himself around her, did not imagine for a moment that he could control this tide that threatened to drag him down and he could not stand up to it, it knocked his legs from under him and forced him down. It took everything he had not to force her with him.

He groaned silently when he saw the inside of the tent; there was only just room for the two of them and even turned staunchly away from her in his own bed roll he knew he would feel her back against his. He wished everything he had sorted himself out before coming to find her, wished he had not followed her at all- talking had done no good and nothing felt resolved. She glared at him from above the candle she was lighting and he saw all that cornered animal wariness back in her eyes; she looked braced to scratch, fight or kill at any moment. He wondered if it was him, if he was not controlling his face as much as he thought he was, as much as he had to, or if she was simply always like this now. He both hurt for her and wanted her all the same.

“Try it,” she said, as though he had spoken, or made even the faintest threat apparent – “And I’ll kill you like I killed your brother.”

He winced, turned away from her, sat on his side of the tent not looking at her.

“That was – he didn’t –”

“You know what he did,” she said softly, he risked a half glance over his shoulder, she was sat as hunched as he was, tight and strained and looking away – “What he _tried_ to do,” she amended, “ If you think I was going to –”

“That was a lie,” he scowled – “Why keep it up even now?”

She turned her head, frowning, he looked away.

“You think that.” It was not a question. She sounded shocked – “You really still think that? Or did you tell yourself until you couldn’t imagine anything else? Is that how you eased your conscience?”

“No – I –” something was warring in his chest – _I don’t believe it -_  but as soon as the words rose up through his throat he realised that he did, how cruel he had been, how little she should forgive him, never mind how he felt about her.

“You killed me,” she said flatly, twisting the knife as though she had panicked in plunging it in and now could only make it worse not knowing what else to do – “And you never even _asked._ You didn’t think for one moment –”

He heard her swallow hard and she leaned forward and blew out the candle. He heard her moving in the dark beside him, felt her lie curled up with her back to him, tightly twisted into her bedroll and untouchable. He felt heavy, almost unbearably slow to move, and there was a dampness on his face  that bewildered him. He moved mechanically, echoing her, turning away, pulling himself up against the canvas wall to lie apart from her. He knew she was not asleep, she was breathing too quietly, as though she did not want to be heard, as though she did not even want him to know she was alive. He could picture the knife clasped tight in her hand.

“You didn’t even _like_ him,” she said in the tightest little voice, so cold she was – he remembered what he had thought when he had seen her again for the first time in Vere – _ice cold heartless bitch._ He let the tears slip silently down his face in the dark in self-aberration for his own injustice towards her. He heard her swallow and it felt for a moment as though it was his tears that slipped down her throat. She would drain him completely and he would give his every last drop to her. He wondered if she was crying, if they were doomed to always mirror each other like this. He wondered if he went down on his knees to beg her forgiveness if she would ever give it to him, if he would deserve it if she did. He thought about her first words to him, and it was true, it was more than fitting that he come back to her in chains and on his knees. He _should_ have listened to her, god knew he had told himself so enough times over the years but he had always come up with some answer that had kept him from fully destroying himself in his own mind. Now in the face of her choked twisted voice, the tension he could feel in every inch of her, no answers seemed to be forthcoming. Lastly he wondered how he would ever sleep.

In the painful quiet between them and the heavy cool night air the sounds from the next tent were painfully unavoidable. Indeed the gasping and murmuring that rose up from the ground, creeping through the canvas walls would have been audible even if they had still been talking. If it were at all possible he heard Milady stiffening behind him and knew that she had heard too. He knew he should probably wait it out but could feel his face growing hot, all of his earlier thoughts coming crowding back in.

“Is that –” he began, foolishly he was sure.

“Constance and d’Artagnan,” she murmured back, a faint trace of amusement creeping into her voice – “Apparently more dedicated to a fake relationship than they would have us believe.”

“You think they’re not really –”

She sighed largely, and to his surprise and shared relief he could feel her relax just a little with that sigh.

“I must explain sarcasm to you some time Athos,” she drawled – “You never were very good at it.”

“Oh,” he did not know what else to say. “Ah,” he added foolishly because the noises were becoming critical now.

“Stop it Athos,” this time he could hear a real smile in her voice. “I am not having sex with you just because you heard a few noises and got excited about it.”

“I am not –” he stopped before she could catch him in a lie. It occurred to him that the roles he thought he had established for them were crumbling too rapidly anyway; she had already proved more honest than he had realised and himself too much of a liar. _Swear you’ll never let anything come between us_ she had said and he, swearing he would not without for one moment considering anything would test him and then falling at the first test without even speaking to her. _You didn’t even like him_. When would it end? When would her every utterance stop haunting and tormenting him? Why did she always have to be right? How could he, _How could he_ have done what he did? And how did he even dare still desire her, imagining anything could come of it?

He could not help it; not hearing the unmistakable sounds of skin on skin in the dark, those high pitched animal sounds. How could he do other than feel the deficiency of room to move in their small space. It was impossible not to think of it; her boots and corset lying at the end of her bedroll, a jumbled small heap of leather and bone and laces, how soft she would feel to touch, how warm and silky her skin, his mouth on hers in the dark, her own little moans, deeper, he remembered, than the sounds he was hearing now, more breathy, always surprised somehow. He could feel the press of her breasts against his chest, the feel of her ribs beneath his hands, the way their bodies locked so easily together as though they were some one thing being made right rather than two things coming together. He had never touched anyone else, not in all the years between them; after the perfection of her it would have been a travesty. He belonged inside her, body and soul just as she had buried herself into his heart and mind so firmly he would never get her out, not by ripping, pulling or teasing. She was twisted into his ribs, woven tight around and through his bones so hard and fast it would break him to dislodge her, there could have been nothing more right than to be inside her. They were in each other already, tangled up at least as tightly as any pair of mating animals in the woods around them.

“They’re not pretending, are they,” he said stupidly.

“It would appear not.”

“And us?”

“What _about_ us?”

“What are we pretending?”

She rolled over. He could feel her staring at the back of him in the dark.

“What do you _want_ Athos?” she sighed, so tired, so bitter, he only half turned, not wanting to see the little he could see of her in the dark and yet – perhaps it was easier this way, to talk, finally without having to look her in the eye. He could not live up to that.

“You want us to pretend to be like them? New and fresh and hopeful? You know –”

“I don’t want to _pretend –”_ he admitted heavily – “I want it to be true.”

“It was once.”

“It was a lie. Even then. All of it.”

“You’re so sure of that are you? You think I’d done that a hundred times before? That I – what? Seduced you for your wealth without ever once feeling a thing? That I calculated everything, every moment of every day? You think I was lying every single time I told you I loved you?”

“Weren’t you?”

“Oh,” she looked as though the breath had been knocked out of her. She looked down into her lap – “You really did think that.”

“Was I wrong?”

“Why do you ask me when you won’t believe one answer and won’t like the other? What could I possibly say?”

“You might try the truth.”

“I did that.” She shifted down slowly, her head sinking onto the cushion on her side as though it had become very heavy and hard to hold up. She sounded so sad he was on the verge of melting when she added – “Look where it got me.”

He frowned, his head a beehive of confusion, and lay, following her example so that they were face to face in the dark; he could just make out her features but barely.

“I want –” he said, reaching out an arm tentatively to her waist.

“I know what you want,” she snapped, pushing him back, the cold slide of a blade a warning against his skin. He pulled his arm back hurriedly – “Are you sure that you do – really? I can’t – I –” he saw the faint flash of her teeth as she bit her lip – “I gave you everything,” she said, shocking him again, he had wanted to say the same thing – “And I took everything from you, yes but it still was not enough to replace what I lost in trusting you, and –” she added it viciously as though – he was not sure, he could barely read her – as though she were speaking more to herself than him. “I will cut off my hand before I reach for you again and I’ll cut off yours if you try it. I can still have you killed.”

“I could still kill you in your sleep.”

She snorted.

“Try it”.

He understand how her body could be so at odd with her words, how she tightened her fingers around her knife when she spoke but at the same time shifted just a little towards him on the ground, leaning her head back, exposing her throat to him in challenge. He understood it in the same way that he had known even whilst saying it that he had no intention of killing her or even hurting her, he could even ignore his desire enough to do nothing without her consent. But he did reach his hand to her throat, though she stiffened when he touched her, using almost all her control not to flinch or move away. He wondered if it was worse for her to have him touch her so gently than if he had wrapped his hands around the throat she offered him; she had no reason after all, he reflected bitterly, to imagine he would not. In the dark her throat was perfect, untouched and unmarked, he stroked it gently with electricity in his fingertips. The tenderness frightened him more than if she had let him do so much more. He could feel her ragged breath near his face, see the shine in her frightened eyes. He shifted nearer, both of them wrapped tightly in their own blankets, separated but forehead to forehead on the hard ground. His tracing fingers moved across her jaw, dabbed at the wetness under her eyes. He remembered how he had wanted to do this when he heard her crying before, how little he could stop himself from brushing away her tears. She was barely crying, holding it all trembling inside her. He wanted to tell her not to cry but that was selfish and unfair. He wished he could tell her just to do it, to cry all she wanted and he would never mention it in the morning, but he knew her. He knew that _Don’t cry_ would make her stop, and _go ahead and cry_ would achieve the same out of stubbornness. He could not think what to say that she might remotely want to hear from him, and all that came out of him was the only whispered word of tenderness he could imagine she wanted to hear. He was suddenly desperate to give her _something_ she might want, however small –

“Milady –”

Her forehead crumpled, he could feel every line of it scrunch against his and she looked at him with surprise and agonising gratitude.

Then she started to cry. She shook silently in the dark, the tears streaming silently down her face and into his hands and he took them and dried them and let her carry on. There were so many words captured in those tears, all the things she could not say, all the regrets and wishes, the fury and frustration, five years of angry disappointed tears and he took them, eyes closed, heart beat loud in the small space and, “I’m sorry,” he said, it was all he had left to say that he could imagine could be said just now. “I’m so sorry,” as if it could ever be enough, if she could even understand that he meant it and so much and she cried herself out until she fell asleep, knife curled in her hand like a child would hold a toy and her face pressed to his in the dark where they could not see.

__x__


	15. Chapter 15

**15 _._**

“I hope the two of you are proud,” Porthos grunted that morning as they all stumbled about in the dawn, wrapping up bedrolls and taking down the tents – “Kept us up all bloody night, you did”.

Athos glanced quickly at Milady – just for a moment a fleeting look of utter terror had passed her face as though she had not cried so quietly even he had not heard her. His heart beat faster itself, wondering if they had spoken loudly enough to be heard.

“Not you two!” Porthos looked between them, half laughing – “Them.” He pointed a finger to Constance and D’Artagnan, emerging sleepy and late from the cocoon of their tent – “Fake romance, eh?” he winked at them hugely – “Never saw such devotion to falsification. Why –” he added turning back to Athos whilst Constance swore at him amiably and d’Artagnan coloured bright red and mumbled. “Weren’t at it as well you two? Looking pretty guilty there.”

Athos wished he could stop his cheeks from feeling so warm, certain he was blushing harder than he ought, unsure of why he was when they had not done a thing except fight and cry, his brain reminded him. But somehow that would have been far worse to admit to Porthos than d’Artagnan and Constance’s late night activities.

“Suppose you mind your own business?” he grunted back, Milady opening her mouth with him; he was sure to say the same thing.

“Aww don’t mind him,” d’Artagnan leapt surprisingly to his aid – “He’s just sore because nobody’s got anything to report on any late night noises from their tent. Too brief was it? Or too non-existent?”

“Too squashed,” Aramis put in, coming to re-join the group with bowls of re-heated food from the night before, handing them round, whilst everyone paused in their preparations to sit on the ground and eat – “Honestly, this one –” he patted Porthos on the shoulder – “Has no business doing anything in a two man tent – you try sharing with him – limbs everywhere.”

“I’ll pass,” d’Artagnan winked and the morning was alight with their gentle chuckles.

“We should really discuss this mission,” Milady nodded at the group a minute later, Athos sitting back and watching her, relieved to see her re-gain at least this outward control, with last night’s tears still scalding on his cheeks. She barely looked at him. He did not care. Something felt good this morning, hopeful even, something he had not seen his way towards in years.

“Who has a map?”

Constance brought one out and soon all six of them were poring over it, and a route was decided that was both off the main roads and as swift as possible to Aquitart.

There was a lightness of mood within the whole party that morning which lasted until the early afternoon. Athos found himself riding at different paces, less determined to keep up with Milady who kept herself as ever well ahead of the others, barely speaking to the rest of the group, though he noticed when they stopped to eat that she sat closer to the group and less stiffly than the day before. He saw her more than once exchange glances with Constance at the foolishness of the boys and even flash a half smile at Porthos’s jokes. It was as though his heart lifted along with the corner of her lips – her smile was so shy somehow, wry and half apologetic as though unsure if this reaction was acceptable. He wanted to kiss it and he wanted to sunbathe in her. He had to look away for wanting too much.

In the afternoon he even began to fall back from the rest of the group a little, and it was from this vantage point that he began to feel a new awareness, something suspicious prickling at the back of his neck that he could not pinpoint until he noticed that the path she was leading them was not entirely as planned; it was erratic, shifting away from the road and always back so as not to lead them completely off course. He cantered along the group of them to the front, slowing down to ride alongside her.

“We’re being followed,” he said unnecessarily. “How long have you known?”

“Since late this morning,” she did not look at him – “Keep your eyes on the road and talk quietly. Then after we stopped, I knew for sure. I’ve been testing to see if they really were, if so how good they are.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know. No more than we are. They’re good, though.”

“Rochefort’s?”

“I’m clever Athos,” she rolled her eyes – “Not magical. But yes, I would guess they were his.”

“What are you – what are we going to do?”

“If we stop they’ll stop,” she replied thoughtfully – “But not at a distance where they can hear us.” She nodded – “Ride back to the others. Tell them all to stop as though it was a break to eat. Tell them, but make them be quiet about it. Can you do that?”

Athos was already riding back.

When they all came to a stop Milady turned on the group, ushering them closer in together –

“Porthos, I want you to lead the rest of them along the path we agreed this morning, Athos and I are going to ride back through the copse. From this angle, if they follow you we can come up behind and surprise them- they’re too far away to notice we’ve left for a while. If we move now, we can take them out at best, find out who sent them at the very least.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Porthos objected – “Why you two?”

“Athos is the best swordsman,” she replied too quickly – “I’m the best at surprise. They’ll hear any of you coming from a mile off. We stand the best chance.”

“I don’t like it,” Porthos grumbled – “They might outnumber you and we’ll be too far off to help.”

“I need you to move now,” she snapped quietly – “Or do I need to put Constance in charge? Wait for us up the road and if we’re not back in two hours then you can rush back and rescue us.”

“If you’re not dead already,” Porthos muttered, but he beckoned the others to follow. Milady swung her horse round into the cluster of trees and Athos followed.

“Why did you really want me?” he asked in a low voice as they moved as quietly as they could through the woods.

“Like I told Porthos –”

“You lied.”

She opened her mouth – to object, he knew- but instead closed it again and let out a short bark of unamused laughter.

“Maybe –” she bit her lip as though – he thought wish a dash of bitterness – the truth was always difficult for her, however innocuous the subject – “Maybe I trust you – at least more than them.” The pause was too long before she added with a forced dismissive ring to the words – “God knows why.”

“Am I your slave or your second in command?”

“Whatever you are, you’re talking too much,” she sighed, but to his surprise relented a moment later. “If I had a second I could do worse,” she added musingly. “I suppose I could do worse for a slave as well. Now shut up, we will hardly be surreptitious with you talking at me like this.”

“We are not –” Athos got no further before the net came down around him. He panicked, instantly flailing and lashing out, reaching for his sword but unable to get at it; the net closed in around him and he was dragged off his horse, he could hear hooves around them in the leaves, Milady near him swearing and struggling- he thought in the same way that he was. His heart pounded painfully in his chest in a frustrated urge to help her though he had not even managed to help himself. It was hard to see straight with the ropes falling around his face. He forced himself to calm down, panicking was getting him nowhere; he made himself listen to the men around them for clues.

“He’s not important,” he heard one of them saying – “It’s her he wanted us to check.”

“It’s hard to check with all these ropes.”

“Take the nets off and tie their hands. Take their weapons too.”

Athos scowled – who was _he?_ Rochefort? The voices sounded Akielon and they wore their plain Veretian styles so poorly he suspected they could only be in disguise – as they were themselves. And what did they want with _her_ especially? His blood rushed in his ears, the panic threatening to return. There were four men, maybe one or two more, they were binding his hands behind his back before they started to untangle the net. He was dragged forward in front of their horses and when they stopped he felt Milady dragged up beside him, bound as he was but looking distinctly calmer about it. He could see her eyes flashing quickly from man to man of them – there _were_ four- observing their position and the horses that had been stopped in a shoddy circle around them.

“Who are you?” Athos growled – “What do you want with us?”

She shot him a glare –

“You forget your place, _slave,_ ” she hissed at him with startling viciousness – “Leave the talking to your betters”. She had not spoken to him like that since the first days of his slavery. He wondered what had happened to make her do so again now.

“You can both leave the talking to us,” said the man who seemed to be their leader – “Where are you headed? Who sent you? What’s your mission?”

Athos opened his mouth to growl back but Milady shot him a look that threatened murder if he did not stay silent.

“What makes you assume there’s a mission? You’ve been following my friends and I some time now, have you not? As you see, we are simply a group of Noble folk on a trip to the Vaskian border with our pets for a summer excursion”.

She lied so swiftly and believably Athos could not decide whether to be irritated or impressed. He did discover, from his long recent experience of being bound, that there was a flaw in the tying of his ropes. He worked it surreptitiously while she kept them talking and prayed she could keep it up for long enough.

“A likely story,” one of the men said.

“ _I_ remember her,” another leered – “Hardly an experience you’d forget,” the others chuckled. The leader glared at them and spat on the ground –

“We need more to go on than that,” he snapped at them. “Like you’d remember one slave out of god knows how many it’s been.”

“I swear though –”

“The Regent said check for his mark. If it’s her, it’ll be there.”

Athos risked a quick glance at Milady, her face betrayed nothing, though there was something fiercely at work behind her eyes, he could feel it; and at the mention of _The Regent_ he almost saw the edge of a tight flash of smile. _Just keep them talking,_ that smile said – _and they’ll give themselves away without us asking a thing._

The leader, the only one among them who seemed to have a streak of intelligence, moved forward quickly, snatching hold of the right sleeve of her shirt and yanking hard enough to rip. Athos heard the low growl escape him before he knew he had made it. Once when he was young he had seen a furious guard dog try to break its chain when its owner was threatened; he felt like that dog now, and twisted in his loosening ropes savagely. The man took hold of her arm and stared at it; he saw her lip curl and she tried to pull away. It occurred to him for the first time it was her scar the men were staring at, the other two moving in to see. The leader traced its outline with his fingers and his lip twitched to see the man touch her – as though he were measuring the size and shape of the burn, a rectangular scar on her upper arm, he remembered it well – she had never told him how it happened and back then it had mattered that it had seemed indecorous to probe further.

“It’s not his mark,” one of the others said.

“Shut up,” the leader ground out – “She might have burned over it. He said not to rule that out. Did you?” he asked, his face far too close to hers for Athos’s liking, trying to wrinkle the truth from her by eye contact alone. He knew the look she would be giving him back – the direct stare that took in nothing and betrayed nothing. Her eyes may as well have been closed. “Who would do a thing like that?” the man urged in a vicious tease to illicit a response from her – “How desperate would one have to be?”

Athos glanced over quickly, no longer certain quite who here he was most afraid for. He saw her lip twitch, the man’s red and cracked face centimetres from hers. When she spoke, her voice was extremely calm, her words dripping like drops from an icicle –

“Get your face out of my face”.

The man laughed at her and did not move. She spat at him, Athos winced. The man took a startled, disgusted step backwards, gasped almost comically and punched her straight in the face. Everything Athos had told himself, every word of calm and sense, everything she had warned him flew out of his mind in one clouded red and black instant. That man had touched her, he had hurt her and that man was going to die. He broke the last of the rope securing his wrists and flew at the man.

 After that everything happened very fast. Milady moved a half second later, her own hands free, lunging for the nearest man and disarming him before he had time to react. She cut him down before Athos has even got his hands around the leader’s throat. He snapped the neck clumsily in his rage and by the time he had disengaged she had the second man on the floor, sword discarded and her dagger in his chest. This was the man who had said he remembered her. She had him pinned tight between her legs and was still stabbing him repeatedly in the chest long after he was dead. The fourth man had run. Athos stared at her in horror – it was nothing like the way he had seen her kill before- she was quick, efficient and clean, nothing like this; despite all the control she had over the situation she was slamming down on him with her eyes red and blazing, the edge of a screech caught on her ragged tearing breath. It was only her evident distress that made him call out to her to stop and when he did it was many minutes before she did. She looked at him slowly as though called out of a dream, the knife sliding from her hands and into the leaves, dripping red streaks across the green. Her eyes were wide and staring, her breathing laboured. He made a step towards her, hands outstretched, he did not know if it was just to touch her, to calm her or help her back to her feet. She snatched up the knife again.

“Don’t. Don’t touch me.”

The thought of it seemed to panic her. He wished he knew what had gone wrong, too aware of the mistake he had made himself in acting so rashly, to imagine what it could be. Nevertheless he backed away fast and she rose slowly, slipping the knife back into her belt and staring at her hands. They were gloved with red. She wiped them disgustedly on her breeches, the stained fabric seeming to bother her less than the wet slipperiness on her hands.

“Was that all of them?”

She looked around at the bodies around them.

“Are we not going to talk about –”

A slightly manic look gleamed in her eye and she looked appallingly as though she might laugh.

“No,” she shook her head “No, we are not. Where’s the other one?”

“The other one?” he looked at her stupidly for a moment – “He got away. Does it matter?”

“Idiot!” her lips pulled back in anger – “This is why I told you not to do anything. I had this under control before you went and ruined it.”

“Control,” he echoed dully, disbelieving, glancing at the bloodstains on her clothes, the ugly purple bruise swelling across her face – “Of course. Foolish of me. Absolutely – you –”

“Shut up Athos,” she seethed – “You’re the one at fault here, now shut. Up!”

“Does it really matter if he got away? They don’t have us anymore.”

“Imbecile,” she spat – “Of course it matters. You realise he’s going to ride straight back to Rochefort and tell him not only what happened here but who I –”

“Who you are.” He finished for her – “And who _are_ you, Milady? What in the hell just happened here?”

She stared at him. He could see her nostrils flaring, her lips thinning dangerously. She said nothing. It occurred to him with the sudden awareness he only ever had where she was concerned that she was saying nothing because she could not control her voice, because she was on the brink of breaking or crying or both.

“What do we do now then?” he amended, wearily, just to stop her from looking so furious and afraid, anything to drive that frantic wild animal look out of her eyes. It worked, at least in as much as she looked down and moved back towards her horse.

“We go back to the others. We carry on as planned. They may know more now, but not where we’re going or who sent us and so what if Rochefort knows who I am?” She said this last more to herself than to him – “They don’t know what happened in Ios, where we’re going or what we’re doing. Those men were stupid. They may even have bought the story about Vask. Let them send men there, see how long they last.”

Athos frowned in utter lack of comprehension –

“You’re saying the fighting men of Vask are better than those of Akielos?”

She sneered at him with condescending amusement, swinging into her saddle, he reluctantly copying her example –

“You really have lived under that rock you called Pinon your whole life haven’t you? There are no fighting _men_ in Vask. And yes they are better, there’s a reason neither of our countries has ever gone to war with them.”

“Oh,” Athos said stupidly, not sure what else he could say that she would not either sneer at, shout at or fail to answer. He did not know how to be when she was like this, nor if he wanted to annoy or help her. If he did help her how would he even start? What would she accept? There was so much he had to ask her now, even more than before. He wanted to know everything, however much it hurt him to hear, but not, perhaps, however much it hurt her to tell. He rode to the left of her, surreptitiously glancing at her shoulder as they rode away silently. The scar was wider than it had any right to be; he winced to think of the pain of whatever caused it. It made his own skin feel raw and pained to think of her suffering any kind of hurt, let alone something that could leave a mark like that. He wanted to kiss it better, kiss it away, he wished he could at least take care of the swelling to her cheek, began thinking of a course of tenderness that would lead him to such an honour as being able to help her. Not more than hour ago she had hinted that she trusted him – could it possibly be true? She had spoken to him so coldly so shortly after in the presence of their captors.

“Stop that,” she snapped, glaring at him. He thought for a moment that she had read his thoughts and averted his eyes hastily, but not fast enough from her arm. She yanked the sleeve up roughly, protectively.

“You never did tell me what that was,” he mumbled.

“I did,” she said, looking ahead – “I told you I did it myself. I did.”

She _had_ told him that, he had assumed it was an accident and not troubled himself with it further. He mumbled this now in reply. She did not respond.

“It wasn’t an accident, was it?” he said tentatively.

“No.”

“Why?” he tried.

Nothing.

“How?”

“Edge of a flat iron. Next question?” She flashed him a look with her teeth clenched and bared that dared him to try. A week ago he would have stayed sensibly quiet. There was too much now that he needed to know.

“Earlier –” he tried to word it carefully. “You said you trusted me more than the others.”

“Oh,” she snorted softly – “That.”

“But then – you spoke to me in front of those men like I was nothing more than your dog. Like I had no right to even speak. I thought – ” he thought they had been moving on from that but he was not sure he dared to say it.

“I had it covered, Athos,” she sighed – “I told you. I dismissed you because if they were looking at me then they at least would not be looking at you.”

“You –” his words moved faster than his slowly grasping mind – “You were doing it to protect me?”

“You’re slow,” she raised an eyebrow archly, lips twisting in near amusement. “But of course. Rochefort knows you too. If he was going to recognise me, it’s best he not know you’re working – alongside me,” she finished awkwardly, only half looking at him.

“You think he might think we’re more of a threat?”

“What? That we’re stronger together?” She said it nastily, but, he noticed, entirely dismissively – “What an idea”.

He almost smirked, He wondered if he could press this advantage.

“That man you killed –” she shot him a glance that told him this was too much and he stopped.

“No,” she said “Not that.” She bit her lip. He wished he could understand what war it was exactly that seemed to be raging in her more violently than ever. Her fists clenched tight around the reins, her knuckles white. He wondered why she could not just give it up. Her chin quivered as though the amendment she was coming to was of a significance so vital she could barely stand it – “not yet,” she said. The look in her eyes said _please._ She did not have to ask him twice.

“At least let me see to your face,” he said gently – “Aramis gave me some things for injuries I could –”

“Later,” she nodded – “yes later, all right. Now we should ride hard to catch the others. There are bodies behind us and we should get a good distance before dark.”

She relaxed her grip on the reins and flicked them. He followed like her shadow, almost her protector.

__x__


	16. Chapter 16

 

**16.**

 

They rode faster after re-joining the others, and did not stop to make camp or sleep that night. By early afternoon of the next day Athos was beginning to fall asleep in the saddle, waking up only when he felt himself begin to slip from his horse.

“We have to stop.” He rode up alongside Milady, whose shoulders were starting to sink as she rode ahead and faster, always faster, than the rest of them – “We can’t go on like this. Someone is going to fall off their horse.”

“Well,” she returned, thin lipped – “Just make sure it isn’t you then.”

“I’m trying to make sure it isn’t _you,”_ he hissed, quietly so the others behind them would not hear.

“Me?” she barked a laugh – “It won’t be me – I’m –”

“You’re _hurt,”_ he caught her arm, forcing her to pull her horse to a standstill. She winced at the stress on her shoulder and glared at him when he noticed. The bruising across her face had come up purple, swelling almost up to her eye. He could hardly stand it, or her persistent silence on the matter.

“If we don’t stop now the others will notice,” he whispered, knowing it was the only argument that might work.

“If we don’t stop now we could reach Aquitart by late tomorrow,” she countered, but there was a delay in it that told Athos he had won.

“Oh thank the gods,” Porthos reined up behind them – “We’re stopping. Tell me we’re stopping. I thought I was gonna fall off the horse.”

“And I –” Aramis yawned loudly mid – sentence – “I was not about to try and catch him.”

“We don’t know how long it will take Rochefort to get his men back on our trail,” Milady objected – “We cannot afford to waste time. But fine. We’ll make camp off the road and sleep until the evening. Perhaps it will be better to ride under cover of dark anyway.”

The rumblings of agreement throughout the party were filled with relief. They pitched camp quickly, snatched what food they could without a fire and disappeared into their tents quicker than Athos had seen any of them move all morning. 

Milady had her back to him when he entered. She had taken her shirt and corset off and was rolling her shoulder back, clutching it with one hand. She looked up guiltily when he entered and stopped, but it was too late. In the light inside their tent he had seen the grimace pass her face when she saw him and had seen the faint scars that streaked her back, old silvery scars he remembered but had not thought to question before, in that other life when he had not known her like he felt he might know her now. She scowled and reached for her shirt.

“Wait –” he said, kneeling down on his side of the tent which placed him right beside her – “I can help with that.”

“It’s nothing –” she began, but stopped quickly beneath his returning glare.

“You don’t have to lie about everything” he sighed. He realised he had opened his mouth to say something far more accusing, and was glad it had come out this way instead.

“Thank you so much for the advice.”

“No, be quiet,” he rummaged in his riding bag for the supplies Aramis had given him – “You’ve lied enough. You don’t have to anymore.” He paused – “You _never_ had to,” he added quietly, almost a whisper. She began a gesture that turned into nothing more than a defeated flap of one hand –

“You would never have –” she began. He reached a hand to her face, stopping her.

“I would,” he said gently- “You’ve told yourself that lie, just as I told myself a hundred to make myself believe I had not wasted everything – the life –” he swallowed hard – “The life we might have had,” he looked at her mercilessly – “I would have married you,” he said steadily, knowing after all this time that it really was the truth – “I would have married you whoever you were and whatever you had done if you had only told me.”

“I can’t,” she held her head back, staring up at the top of the tent to keep the tears in her eyes – “I’ve cried enough,” she added by way of explanation – “I can’t accept that.”

“I know,” he nodded – “I – I understand. Look at me.”

“No.”

“Look at me. I can’t help the bruising with your head like that.”

She blinked viciously and wiped her eyes, only then looking back at him, her eyes washed a startling fresh green from her unshed tears. They threatened again at the feel of his fingers so gentle against her cheek, dabbing gently, rubbing something cool in soft circles into the skin.

“It smells.”

“It works.”

They had both become painfully aware of the intimacy of this gesture, the closeness of their faces in the pink and gold half-light. Athos could feel something thrumming in his chest, reverberating throughout him, making his fingers shake and his face feel numb. All his tiredness had disappeared as if by magic.

“How do you know it works?” she muttered. Athos could not help but feel as though she were stalling, but was not sure what it was she needed to stall on.

“In case you all didn’t notice for laughing –” he said, letting her stall for a while – “I was thrown from my horse two days ago, which funny though it may have looked left bruises.”

“Aww poor Athos,” she pouted in deep mock sympathy – “Did Aramis patch up his nasty bump for him?”

“Shut up,” he said amenably. “Tell me about Rochefort”.

“What?” She jumped, startled, a cornered look in her eye suddenly as though he had caught her out somehow.

“Rochefort,” he repeated – “Turn around, let me see to that shoulder.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my –”

“We got into quite a fight before. There’s no shame in having pulled something. Let me.”

Her muscles felt tense beneath his hands, and there was a tension too that was not the muscle damage. He tried to block out the softness of her skin, her near translucence in this curious light, the way his fingers tingled to touch her.

“Nothing you don’t want,” he said gently, lifting his hand, not touching her – “Just so you can ride comfortably again tomorrow.” He kept his hand raised in a silent question until he saw her jaw relax through what seemed to be a force of will and she nodded tightly. He pressed his fingers into the skin and started to rub. He could smell her hair and her skin this close and fought to keep his head from reeling.

“Now tell me what would be so terrible if Rochefort were to succeed and take over these countries. I feel you know what we’re fighting for here better than I do.”

“You’re asking _me_ this question when the man made you a slave and gave your lands to another?”

“I –” he knew he had to choose his words carefully not to let her suspect the real intent of his question or that there was anything crafty behind it. It felt as though he was trying to trick a master trickster – “I suspect your knowledge is greater than mine and your reasoning better considered.”

“Rochefort is a madman,” she answered coolly, closing her eyes and arching her neck, biting her lip before any expression of pleasure at the relief to her shoulder could spill out – “He’s a foul man. An animal who tortures and rapes his slaves before passing them onto his men who he has intentionally trained to be every bit as vile as he is. He takes delight in breaking people, all the more so when they prove difficult to break, and lets nobody escape him. If his control of a country were absolute can you imagine him treating his people any differently?”

“You have this from slaves of his?” He forced his hands to keep moving at her shoulder, not to clench in fury or freeze for knowledge of the question he already knew the answer to.

“I _was_ a slave of his.” Irritation at the stupidity of his question made her speak too fast and she turned alarmed right on the back of her words glaring at him. “You tricked me” she accused – “Why?”

There were two reasons on the tip of his tongue; he flicked them back and forth until he found the one that was most important –

“You needed to say it out loud.” It occurred to him in the instant of saying it that his needing to hear it was utterly secondary to this fact.

“You _wanted_  me to,” her eyes narrowed – “You think I should have done it from the start – that I could have made everything different or – better”

“I would never have hated you for it –” he could not help but be defensive, wounded by her assumptions into speaking foolishly – “Never have decided not to marry you. I don’t see how you can imagine you would have had anything other than my sympathy –”

She made a sound of snarling disgust and jerked her shoulder, pulling away and throwing him off.

“You think I would have wanted _sympathy?”_ The word curled out through a sneer and she licked her lips as though it left a bad taste on her tongue. “That’s –” He reached for her again, no longer ready to be daunted, feeling his persistence was right – “That’s disgusting. I –” When he touched her she did not throw him off again. “That’s disgusting,” she repeated, sighing.

“I said that wrong,” he mumbled. “I should have – I meant – I would never –”

She half turned her head and he saw her eyebrow lift, a cracked smile twitch in the corner of her mouth.

“Are you quite all right, Athos? You did say that wrong, yes. I’ll get over it. Keep doing that. Yes, just there.”

He worked the area she had indicated, and she made a groaning sound, rolling her shoulders under his hands, drawing her legs up to her chest and curling inwards like a plant, almost comfortably. It occurred to him that he had never caught her in a gesture that made her look so small before.

“I don’t want –” his tongue felt tangled in his mouth – “I don’t want to give you anything – not even a feeling – that you do not want, nor do anything to hurt you.”

“Yes,” she sighed, rolling her head, squeezing her eyes shut to feel the tension humming out of her ears. “Yes, I always believed you when you said that sort of thing. I don’t know why. I thought you were different from other men. Maybe. Maybe you _do_ mean it. I wish –” she broke off, with a louder groan. Athos paused his fingers in their kneading at her skin.

“I’m sorry – does that hurt?”

“Yes – yes but – don’t stop? It’s good” he could hear the relief in her voice and stroked more than rubbed down her back, where the tension was unlocking in a line down her injured side.

“You wish?”

“It doesn’t matter. I wished a lot of things. Leave it.”

He left it. For a few minutes they continued in silence; he could feel the tension in her melting beneath his hands and knew that his touch was now more simply pleasant than strictly necessary. But she let him continue and he was not going to be the first to break that for the world.

“How did you escape?”

“Hmmm?”

“Rochefort. You said nobody ever escaped him. But you must have.”

“Yes. I must have,” she smirked – “How well observed. Yes I escaped. I was a – shall we say particular favourite of his?” He could see her fists clench around her knees, feel her teeth clench, the effort it took to keep her face from twitching seeping out in tension through her shoulders. He took that tension in in his hands, willing himself to carry it for her. She took a deep breath. “Like I said, he enjoys nothing better than a challenge, something that refuses to be broken. Trust me, I _had_ to escape. But you don’t want to hear it or how many of his men died for me to do so.”

“You killed them?”

“Yes.”

“They had –” he choked on the thought, it was sick in his throat – “they’d hurt you?”

No reply.

“You should have killed more of them.”

His hands wavered, unsteady on her shoulders. He had never had to restrain his anger so hard, knowing it was not directed at her and that it would not help her.

“I killed a lot.” She said flatly – “And tricked still more into fighting and killing each other. When I came out of hiding, I sold myself to the Lady Jokaste – she has a reputation for protecting her slaves almost entirely the reverse of Rochefort’s. It was only until I found something better still – and I did. The rest you know.” She shrugged.

“So this mission –” It felt to Athos as though his brain was running faster, working harder than it had ever gone before – “This is revenge?”

“ _Revenge,”_ It sounded as though she was tasting the word – “It makes it sound almost petty. I could say no. I could tell you I just care about the fate of the country. Of two countries. I could say I just don’t want anyone else to suffer because of Rochefort, that I want to free the slaves he’ll still be torturing for no reason - just for – just because he likes it –” her lips twisted around the words like oil, seeping through the pores of her skin, ready to wreck everything that crossed her path. “I could tell you that. Would you believe me?”

The temptation to say _yes_ was almost overpowering. He fought it back hard and said nothing.

“Of course,” he did not know what answer she had expected him to give – “We both know I’m not that person. I want to destroy him completely. For fun. Because I like to, because he did it to – because he _tried –_ trust me, it’s many things but it is _not_ petty.”

“I do,” he said, surprising himself.

“What?”

“I trust you.”

“No you don’t,” she smiled, so unspeakably sadly that he thought he might cry. “But thank you for saying so.”

He wanted to tell her it was true, or at least that he thought that it was true, wanted it to be. He wanted to tell her to stop lying for the second time tonight, but how could he do that when she was lying to herself more than him. How could he when she did not know she was doing it? How could he tell her he knew her finally, had been getting to know her for weeks and had found her, had seen her more clearly than she had sight of herself? He wanted to kill everyone who had ever hurt her but how could he do that and let himself live? How could he even express the thought? How could he tell her she had become as integral to his survival as breathing – more, that she always had been? How, more than anything did he tell her that he loved her, now perhaps more than anything, loved her more now for all her flaws than he had loved her before for her perfection. Even the words were not right, for her flaws were dear to him now and her perfection had been a lie, a pedestal he should never have forced her onto to begin with. All of this hovered voiceless on the tip of his tongue and all that came out was –

“What if we fail? What if Rochefort wins?”

“We won’t fail,” she ground it out between her teeth. He heard daggers in her voice and loved this in her too, he loved the tooth and nail of her, the claws and the sharp and the sweet. He could have bared his throat to her, peeled back his heart and let her rip and tear her way through him if it was something she needed to do.

“We won’t,” she repeated and she was a spiny small ball, her back pressing into his hands, her shoulders seeming small and hard beneath his hands – “And if we did I would kill the world before I let him take me back.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

She snorted.

“ _I_ won’t let that happen.”

He did not know which he wanted more; for it to be true that she did not need his help or for her to allow him to help her. Either way he would not have dreamed of arguing her point. Until now it had felt as though he had more cause for revenge on Rochefort than any of the rest of them, but any motivation he may have had had fled in these last few minutes, melting into nothing or allying itself to her cause. He felt ready to lay down his sword at her feet and swear himself to her service if such was what she required. Instead he dipped his head with reverential tenderness to place a kiss on her shoulder, a note of music hanging golden and suspended in the air. She did not smile or relax, but neither did she move away or flinch from him as he had feared she might and he counted it as a success.

“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” he said lightly, anything to try and lighten the heaviness that had draped itself around them in the space of the tent, warm and crackling and far too potentially delicious. He could feel her relax with her smile and make a sound that was almost a laugh –

“It’s a little late for that.”

“I’m not your enemy.”

“No.” It felt as though they had travelled more than distance to hear her say as much – “But we’re not – _friends_ either.”

“What then?”

“You tell me,”

“Milady I –” another time, another life, that image again of a knight presenting arms at her feet. He searched for the only true thing he could say – “I am your slave.”

“Yes,” she nodded as though it were a comforting reply, an answer she could remind herself of if she needed to. But she sighed – “For now,” she added.

“For now?” the prospect of freedom seemed suddenly terrifying.

“Your eyes say for now. Your eyes have always said for now.”

“I don’t want –” he remembered coming to Vere, remembered those early days, how much he would have given to get away. Even then, there had never seemed really to be anywhere to go to. In the five years before he had never felt at home. He had not known then all that he had learned this past week – that home was more people than places. He had never wanted her gone. He did not want to leave her now. Faint ideas of taking his land back, revenging upon Rochefort for his own sake – they blew through his fingers like dust. There was no freedom in being apart from each other, only the rib-cracking pull of the chains that bound them. How could he – a slave as he had said – even begin to tell her this?

“ _I_ want,” she broke in – “To sleep. And so should you. We have a long ride ahead of us tonight.”

“To Aquitart.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“Go to sleep Athos, and – thank you.” She said it awkwardly, as though the words tasted strange and rare in her mouth and she was not sure if she liked it.

“For what?”

For a moment she looked confused, as though she could not quite say and had confused herself by letting the words out –

“My shoulder _does_ feel better now,” she said frowning, banishing him to his side of the tent with the movement of her body to lie down, holding her shoulder, he noticed, not where it had been hurting her, but where he had kissed her.

At some point in their sleep his hand found hers on the ground between them and her fingers, in her sleep, laced themselves as though instinctively into his, and he smiled in his half sleep and the sleep was sweet.

__x__


	17. Chapter 17

 

**17.**

 

They reached Aquitart in the late evening and rode straight to the fort where the Queen’s retainer was garrisoned. They were suspicious at first when Milady approached them, unknown and alone, ahead of the rest of the party who hung back until Constance surprised them all by coming forward with the Queen’s seal as proof of the instructions she had left with Milady. After that it was a matter of a hour to get the entire garrison riding back towards Arles, leaving them with the understanding that the majority of the Veretian army were stationed on the border from Ravenal to Marlas as the Queen had said, but that they were resting, practising, under no knowledge of any imminent threat from Akielos.

“That settles it then.” Milady turned to the rest of the group as the soldiers were making ready to leave, still side-eyeing Constance, unsure if she was grateful for her intercession or irritated that it had been necessary – “We should ride on to Ravenal at dawn.”

“The Queen said to await further orders here,” Porthos objected.

“She also said it might be necessary to ride on to the border forts and alert them of a threat from Akielos. Rochefort’s men are already more onto us than they should be- we cannot afford just to sit here and wait while the Veretian army sits idly by just a day’s ride from here at Ravenal.”

“We should send word with the soldiers, informing the Queen of our advanced movement,” Athos offered. Milady nodded, grateful and irked by the relief it gave her chest to hear him agree with her plan and pave the way for it with the others so simply.

“That’s settled then,” Aramis spoke for all of them. Milady nodded;

“We’ll rest here tonight and ride on in the morning.”

“Thank God,” Porthos stretched, yawning. “Walls. And real beds.”

“Says the man who commandeers almost two men’s sleeping space in a tent,” grumbled Aramis pleasantly. As they bickered, a servant came from the fort to present them an offer of food, drink and beds for the night. There was not a man among them whose eyes did not light up at the mention of drink. Even Athos looked a silent question to Milady, who nodded –

“Go ahead. We’ll follow.”

As the soldiers streamed out of the courtyard and their men headed towards it, Constance and Milady looked at each other in the darkening square of the yard.

“I wasn’t –” Constance began.

“It doesn’t matter,” Milady said before she had finished the second word.

“No, I don’t –” Constance took a deep breath, Milady could see the couple of seconds that was all it took for her to decide whether to speak or not – “Her Majesty put you in charge. I couldn’t lead this lot all this way if you paid me. She just left her seal with me because – well because –”

“Because she trusts you.”

“It’s not that she doesn’t –”

“Don’t be silly. Of course she doesn’t trust me.” Milady bit back the urge to add _do you?_ Only days ago she would have asked it in a heartbeat, daring her to respond with the negative that could only be the truth. Instead she just sighed, as though she had been infected with Constance’s brash honesty –

“Why would she, she doesn’t know my name and I slept with her husband. I could hardly begin to take offense, all things considered”.

“As long as you don’t –”

“It’s fine.”

Constance smiled. They looked at each other awkwardly for a moment before Constance shrugged, easily throwing off the strangeness as though they were simply friends now and it was that simple –

“Shall we follow? Get up there before they drink _everything?”_

“You go,” Milady could feel her forehead knotting in a stitch of confusion she supposed she would have to work out alone. She forced herself to smile – “I’ll be up soon.”

Constance nodded and half walked, half ran up to the castle door. Milady sighed and turned away, letting her feet lead her without thinking about it, out of the courtyard and down towards the town in the gathering dusk and shadows.

It was a small town and a poor one, becoming rapidly more dishevelled the further one walked from the castle. The cobbled streets were badly kept and half reduced to rubble in some places. It felt familiar. She wondered perhaps if it should have felt like home but it did not. It was quiet in the early evening, she remembered that – it got busier the darker it got around here. The shops were boarded up, the owners doubtless sleeping armed near the doors for fear of thieves; the only light came from weak candles in the windows over the shops, cheap light that could not afford to penetrate the dark beyond those small rooms. The tavern doors were closed, though the places themselves were open. There was little trade or business here that operated legally, she knew, this was the outskirts of the Beggar’s Court and some of these outwardly silent doorways opened onto labyrinths of vice and iniquity, cellar systems that linked up all across the underside of Aquitart where the real business of the Court ran like a sewer.

She wondered what had brought her feet here, wondered if a part of her had always known she had to come home. If this was home. It certainly seemed the same, to linger in these shadows watching and hiding. She wondered who ruled here now, if Sarazin’s nasty little underground fiefdom still held sway. She wondered if anyone here would know her if they saw her, if they had ever known her. She wondered if they would remember the magpie- at least now that little bird was long flown. She wondered what had possibly possessed her to come here with the wings of that former self beating in the shadows all around her.

They had taken her away in a cage, so strange now to be back here and flying. She remembered – it was inevitable – the day the Regent had come, though he was not Regent then, just the Comte de Rochefort, but even still a bigger prize than she had set her sights on before. She had thought if she could just ensnare prey like that, pull off a robbery of such proportions – Sarazin would cease his eternal campaign to make her his most sought after whore as well as his thief. He did not call them whores, he called them courtesans – just another evidence of how much he overestimated his position. She had remained so foolishly arrogant despite all his effort to twist her and break her; she had not imagined he would simply sell her to the first person willing to offer enough. In one of these streets on an evening like this, they had bundled her into a covered wagon as though she were stolen goods herself and she had not seen the place since. She could almost still hear that girl scream and fight.

_(“Magpie?” he had said. “It’s somehow so fitting,” and it had taken three of them to hold her still when the brand seared into her arm and she closed her eyes and flew above them, biting her lip until it was the only thing that hurt and never screaming, not once, until they looked at her as though they were afraid and stepped away from her; and only then, looking down at the cage blistering its bars across her skin had she felt herself if not defeated then destroyed at least in this life.)_

She could hear the past rushing in her ears, the pressure of memory heavy in this place, looking up at those dully lighted windows, any one of which could be the room she had been born in. She did not know, did not care, where and when, to whom. _It’s wasn’t me,_ she thought, and it sounded half mad but it made more sense than the memories to think with sudden clarity – _I have never been here. I do not belong here._

She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and whipped around, stepping back, knife in hand. She rolled her eyes, shook her head, sighing deeply.

“All of you –” she breathed out beneath her teeth, aware of how close she had come to simply lashing out with the knife – “You need all of you to learn not to sneak up on me.”

“Yeah, well.” Porthos had taken a step back as quickly as she had – “I can move fast too, you know. A little bird taught me how.”

She made the knife disappear, sighing.

“That little bird doesn’t exist anymore. What are you doing here?”

“We got worried,” Porthos scratched his head and looked down – “When Constance came back without you we – that is – we got worried about you wandering round on your own in a place like this.”

“I –” she almost laughed – “I think I’m familiar enough with places like this to take care of myself.”

“Well you can tell them that –” Porthos offered her his arm in a manner that insisted she take it – “Because I wasn’t about to.”

“You _really_ all came out looking for me?” She frowned, letting go of Porthos’s arm but walking back up towards the fort with him all the same.

“Nah, not all of us, course. You think I could drag Constance away from the beer? Just the rest of us. Couldn’t tell them I knew where you’d be, could I?”

“Oh you just knew?”

“Almost came back here myself. Nothing like nostalgia is there?” She closed her eyes for a moment, stopping in the streets in a flood of light from a tavern door near the castle wall, head swimming with it all and half dizzy.

“Sorry,” Porthos added gruffly – “Sorry, that was –”

“No it’s –” she shook her head – “I don’t know what it is.”

“It’s weird,” Porthos nodded – “That’s what it is. You feel like you have to come back. Like you always had to at some point. Like it’s gonna feel like home, then you come back and you realise – the only reason you might ever have needed to come back was to work out you _never_ needed to come back. Something like that I reckon. You know what I figured?”

“What?

“Home. It’s not places, it’s people. And it’s you. In here,” he tapped on his chest – “And the people you carry in here.” He did not wait for her to agree or disagree – “You ready to go on?”

She nodded.

“You need to look back before we do?”

She took a deep breath, looked at the road in front of them, almost turned around but instead locked eyes briefly with the dark brown ones looking down at her so kindly she could not help but feel confused and almost warm inside –

“No,” she said, nodded and took his arm, walking determinedly up towards the castle, dropping his arm at the door and smiling when he patted her on the shoulder, holding the door to let her go through. She felt as though she were coming out of the dark and into the light more than simply literally, unprepared but somehow able to smile when the rest of them smiled and raised their tankards to see them returned. She sat at a table with them and silently accepted the ale d’Artagnan pushed her way, grateful that they carried on without further questions or indeed paying her any further attention and continuing to laugh as Aramis complained about the state of his muscles after four days of solid riding.

She smiled, watching them, seated closer to them in this state of companionship than she might have chosen on her own, faintly concerned for Athos who was still missing, but otherwise contemplating her own day’s hard riding. Her shoulder was complaining again now but she had ridden comfortable for most of the day with a bandage and her corset loosened. She felt herself struggling and painfully exposed by everything she had admitted to Athos the night before. It felt shameful, terrible and at the same time stupid to have bothered him with such things. It felt as though she had opened up her skin and pulled back the ribs and could feel a chill wind buffeting her insides. She was still stung by his sympathy and felt her skin crawl with it and she felt stupid to have felt as upset by it as she had even though she had shown him only the smallest portion of that. She was glad she had.

She should have felt awful today, with all the vulnerability exposed, but it was hard to feel as dreadful as she ought when her shoulder felt so much better and her skin felt warm where he had touched her, the memory of his hands on her back as comforting to her thoughts as the feel was delicious to her skin. Her face too had hurt her more than she admitted or wished to think about, but the cream had taken away all of the pain and swelling and even the bruise was starting to fade and she could still feel that touch, like (love) tenderness on her skin, like a kiss.

The door to the dining hall swung open and Athos walked in briskly, silently panicking, his face creased in concern –

“I can’t –” he began, breathless from running – “She’s not – could somebody come and –”

“I’ll come,” Milady rose, a smile flickering mischievously around her lips while the others looked at him in amusement, as though waiting for a slow family member to get the end of a joke – “Who were you looking for in such distress?”

Athos stared at her, his face first creasing further and then un-creasing in a relief that washed over him so palpably and obviously she almost felt guilty for teasing him. The others, less guilty, roared with laughter and slid a drink across the table to him. He sat down near her, scarlet, and did not say a word, staring into the drink which Porthos apologetically filled up for him for the rest of the evening. It was Porthos too, who looking sideways at the two of them, made a motion first towards sleep and ushered the others to follow.

In the quiet of their departure Milady moved along the bench a little, turning away from the table to face the last flames of the fire in the hearth behind them. She looked down at her hands, her eyes flicking like the sparks in front of her back and forth to Athos, watching her. The distance and the quiet between them was both comfortable and pregnant with tension and uncertainty.

“Where did you go?” Athos said at last. She scowled; it seemed terribly unimportant now and she knew what she wanted to say, what she wanted to do if it were not so difficult. But it was selfish, this pain, and she fought it off.

“Nowhere,” she waved the question dismissively with a loose hand, trying to set her thoughts in order. It was right, she knew it; she had to. Had to give this up. It was the logical conclusion to all of her wandering  thoughts, her concerns, the framework of the memories that had assailed her in this place – “It doesn’t matter- I – grew up here, I suppose.”

She prayed silently that he would not ask for more, glancing up at him slowly. He was looking at her with a face she could not read but he did not press.

“If you were free,” she said quickly; blurting it out was the only way to ask – “Where would you go? What would you do? Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

He looked confused and inched along the bench towards her.

“I don’t know,” he said slowly – “I thought about it. But I don’t know.”

“I want –” she wished it did not sound so heavy, wished she were not lying to him, another in a long string of lies, but this one – it had to be for the best – “I want you to go.” She swallowed, ashamed of the way her heart had begun to cry. “I should never have kept you like this. It was wrong. You should go – wherever you want, do what you would without me, take back your lands if you wanted, I don’t know – you could take the others, they could help. Here –” she held it out to him, small and golden, burning her fingers.

“What is it?”

“The key to your collar. It’s yours. You should go free.” For a moment she thought he would refuse to take it but he did, slowly, looking at it as though he was not sure what to do with it.

“I can’t be free,” he said and instead of using it, pocketed the key. “I’m bound to you, as you are to me. I can’t leave you now, not like this.”

“Well when _can_ you leave me?”

“I don’t –” his eyes searched her face, she thought helplessly – “This. What we’re doing here is too important. More important than any score I may have to settle. I accept the offer of freedom, Milady, but I must decline to take it – at least until all of this is over.”

“I am not –” this time the tears did threaten. She stared into the brightest part of the fire until her eyes hurt and the tears fell back – “I am not Rochefort. I do not want to keep anything that does not wish to be kept.”

This time he did take the key from his pocket and handed it back to her, taking her hand and curling her fingers around it. His hand almost encased hers for a minute and his fingers did not seem to wish to give up their grip.

“You won’t be,” he said, something choking in his voice as it had choked in hers.

“You can’t keep that collar on forever,” she shook her head at the ridiculousness of it – “You should not want to.”

“You offer me freedom and then tell me what I cannot do?”

“Supposing I ordered you then, as my slave, to leave me?”

“I would take back your offer of freedom and exert my right to stay.”

“Why?”

“I said I was bound to you. I do not think I could continue to breathe if those bindings were stretched over too great a distance.”

A smile tugged at the corner of her lips –

“And what is too great a distance?”

He looked at her so searchingly, so lost, as though he could not see without her to lead him. The fire danced behind them warming the short space between them.

“We are testing it now,” he said, and she sighed and found his hand next to hers on the wooden bench, the fire burned them where their fingers touched. She shifted towards him minutely and could not look at him.

“I am not making you stay,” she said, though she was no longer sure if it was for her benefit or his.

“No.”

“Tomorrow we take Ravenal and I will ask you again if you wish to leave.”

“You may ask.”

“And the next day, and the next at Marlas.”

“You may.” He did not say _you may ask every day forever_ but they both heard it.

They both stared into the fire as though mesmerised, for a long time slipping in its airstream, ready to fall. When she felt her head begin to turn towards him she let it drop to his shoulder and rest there. They sat for a long time until the fire began to die down.

__x__

 


	18. Chapter 18

**18.**

He could not believe it had been such a short time ago that this had seemed like everything he could possibly want. Freedom. How stupid he had been. It was nothing. He remembered a line he had read once –  _to get what you want you have to know how much you are willing to give up._ He had thought it would feel like surrender to say no to freedom, but somehow it did not. He had not even known what he wanted until the opposite was offered to him, but he understood now all too well. The only impossibility now would be to be apart from her; he should have known it from the start, it had always only ever been the truth. When she fell asleep on his shoulder, he carried her to a bed as gently as though she were made of leaves and might scatter at any moment. She did not even really wake when he laid her down, kneeling by the side of her bed reverently, in joy at being able to do so and knowing that he was doing it entirely by choice.

He knelt beside her bed, head close to hers. Bowed as though he were offering up the most fervent prayer of his life. It felt as though was – as though he were making her a promise far deeper than those he had broken when he married her. He was not entirely sure he could voice exactly what it was he was promising her but it came from the deepest part of him all the same. He watched her until the last candle died, certain that he would not be able to sleep all night himself for the excited peace and reverence that were dancing about his heart. He awoke some hours later in the early morning light to find her propped on her elbow and looking down at him with something like tolerant affection. He moved with vague speed, trying not to look like a pet who had knelt on the floor of their owner’s bed the whole night.

As they rode towards Ravenal that morning there was a lightness to the whole party that had not been there since before the men following them. He noticed, more than anything else, that Milady was not riding as far ahead of them as she had been wont to do before now, that she stopped to consult their route with Constance, even though he suspected she did not need to, and that she rode alongside Porthos at times, discussing plans for when they arrived at the border fort. The air was different too; the heaviness of the summer seemed to be lifting and, though it was still warm, there was a breeze coming down from the hills and cooling them as they rode.

In the late afternoon they saw their first sightings of Ravenal in the distance. It was nothing like he had expected, grander and larger by far than what he had imagined after Aquitart, more like a castle than a fortification.

“It was once,” Milady said, pulling up her horse alongside his as they all took the precautious luxury of stopping to admire the view – “There wasn’t always a border here; this was one kingdom once, before the wars.”

“This place –” Aramis said, pulling up along behind them – “It looks like it should be that way again – like it would rather be a palace than a fort.”

“Perhaps –” Athos began.

“Perhaps it will be again?” D’Artagnan interrupted for him – “Could be. One day.”

“Not all the broken things have to stay that way –” he looked over in surprise to realise it was Milady who had spoken, a faraway look in her eyes that reached all the way to the pennants fluttering ahead of them, both the King’s red and the Queen’s blue, together – “Perhaps sometimes a thing split in two  _can_ be put together again.”

He saw her blink rapidly as though surprised to hear herself musing out loud – or surprised at the thought itself, he could not tell. Either way something in her voice made him aware of his heart beating hard with hope in his chest and a warmth that spread all the way to his face. He moved his horse forwards quickly.

The shadows were lengthening in the courtyard when they rode into Ravenal, dark fingers stretching across the gold of the ground and making the walls shimmer like a castle in a story. It should never have been appointed for battle, this silver and gold place, glittering in the sunlight, like the palace at Arles but with a warmer, relaxed feel to it. They were surprised to find themselves welcomed by a friendly and attentive Captain of the Guard who informed them he had received a letter from the Queen earlier that day asking them to welcome the small party but not informing anyone of their purpose. Milady began talking with the man as they dismounted, a stable boy running to see to their horses.

“We suspected this,” the Captain was saying as Athos came to stand near them –“We apprehended a scouting party from Akielos coming this way three days ago, we suspect another may have got through.”

“Yes,” Milady nodded – “We encountered them. We suspect it is only a matter of time before the Regent has an army on its way to the border, we mean to ride on to Fortaine tomorrow and inform the men stationed thereof the same.”

The captain nodded.

“We guessed as much Milady and my men are prepared in spite of the flags you see here; we judged it best to make an appearance of peace until confirmed otherwise.”

“You’ve done well. We ride on tomorrow morning.”

“In the meantime I hope you will accept our hospitality; the castle servants will take you to rooms where you may change and there is a meal being prepared in the great hall.”

She nodded her thanks with an exhalation of relief only Athos could feel the strength of. She had to be, as they all were, desperate for clean clothes and proper food after the week on the road, but she accepted the hospitality as though she were nothing more than a perfect lady. He smiled and allowed himself to be led to his own set of rooms near hers. For reasons he was not certain, other than graciousness, they had all been provided for with changes of clothing as though they were royalty. He looked down at the heap of stiff fabric and lacings that had been left on the bed in a mixture of amusement and horror. He was still struggling half an hour later when Aramis came to help. He was thankful it was Aramis who was pet enough to not mind assisting him, and gentleman enough to not talk about it. Clearly no distinction had been made in the Queen’s missive as to the rank of any of them and they were all, to his surprise and – what would be pleasure were the clothing less tiresome – being treated as equals.

The men descended to the hall ahead of the ladies and mingled with the soldiers milling there whilst they all – themselves and soldiers alike- awaited the ladies before eating. Athos found himself with Porthos discussing military preparations with the generals whilst d’Artagnan made a nuisance of himself with the soldiers and Aramis lounged near the long trestle table, turning an instrument Athos did not recognise in his hands. But every head turned, the room falling quiet, when Constance and Milady appeared on the stairs. Constance turned bright red under the attention, he saw; but Milady jerked her chin, half smiling half sneering, bearing the attention both regally and as though it were an attack. He paused a moment before hurrying forward but d’Artagnan had moved to Constance’s side like a wind before any other man could claim her and he saw the way Milady scanned to crowd for him quickly, pretending that she was not and went forward, flushed and nervous as a boy to offer her his arm.

From somewhere he could no longer see a stringed instrument was playing and the men began to murmur amongst themselves again. Near them he heard d’Artagnan laughingly whisper –

“You look like a princess,” and Constance, blushing, awkward, happy –

“I feel like a princess”.

“And you?” he turned his eyes with ridiculous shyness to the woman on his arm, barely believing in her – “Do you feel like a princess?”

“Oh for goodness sake,” she would have rolled her eyes, he thought, if she had not been labouring under a need to be elegant – “Should I?”

“You should –” he swallowed hard, afraid of how she would react – “You should always feel as beautiful as you appear to me now.”

She shook her head as they approached the benches.

“Sit,” she sighed tolerantly, but it was not, he noticed, a dismissal of his praise.

She was still laced to the neck, silver ribbons half dropping in loops from her wrists and down her back, but she seemed to have become softer than before. Perhaps it was the dress, in shades of peachy pink and rose gold which should not have suited her but was somehow exquisite, the folds of the dress falling and swishing on the floor around her, excessive but soft. He could smell her perfume drifting up as though from the folds of her dress, see the rise and fall of her chest in a meshwork of corsetry. Her hair fell in curls over one shoulder and her smile was a curious mixture of haughty and shy. He wondered how it was possible to fall in love so fast but of course, it was easy – he did it with her all the time.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said as they took seats.

“Like what?”

“Like I should be feeding you from my fingers like a good pet.”

“You know in Akielos, it is the slaves that feed the masters in the same manner.”

“We are not in Akielos.”

“This is the border. We are not in Vere either.”

He looked at her steadily, and she smiled slowly, reaching for a piece of meat and holding it out to him delicately. He took it from her in his teeth, pushing his forehead once again instinctively into her palm. He remembered how angry he had been before to catch himself doing so; now it seemed far more natural than it would have seemed to feed himself when sat beside her. As if she had read his mind, she said –

“You were so angry when I did that last.”

“Do not remind me of who I was then,” he had meant to say  _what_ he was or  _how_ and was not sure why it had come out the way it had.

“Should it not inform who you are now?” she said it lightly, one eyebrow raised but he could see something else in her glance, as though she were curious about more than just him.

“It – does not have to.” He hoped it was the right answer. She smiled and leaned across the table to speak with the Captain of the troops and he was relieved to be allowed this moment to simply consider her. It was hard to sit next to her like this, hard to feel so warm inside, so open. He heard singing faintly above the sound of the strings – Aramis; he was faintly surprised at how pleasant his voice was. He leaned back a little, drank some red wine from a gold and stone cup, his head swum with the taste and the warmth and her, above everything always her. He did not think he would be able to speak now if anyone spoke to him, he was shaken through and through with the force of everything he wanted, feverish with it. The air felt tight, laden and heavy and too sweet, the smell of her filled him entirely – he had to leave.

Everyone was deep in conversation and the room was glowing with warmth and food and camaraderie. It was easy to slip out a side door unnoticed and up a flight of stone steps. He came out on the battlements and went to the edge. He could just see the last of the sun going down and the sunset was spreading behind him, red and gold on the horizon turning to grey and gold and gathering deep blue around him. He rested his palms on the cold stone and exhaled deeply trying to breathe normally, to make his head stop still. The stone was cool and pleasant on his palms, they were itchy and sweaty and he leaned his forehead against the stone as well to cool it just the same.

“You know this feast is for you as much as anyone,” came a cool voice behind him. He jumped, tried to turn it into a simple turn around. He had not even heard her foot on the step.

“Did you think I would not notice?” her voice was arched but she was smiling gently. He could barely stand at the sight of her and was horrified to feel his knees shake.

“I had to –” he stopped, he could not tell her why he had to go – “It is for you too, then,” he countered instead – “It is you that has got us this far.”

“With you,” she made it sound as though they were fighting, but she kept walking slowly towards him; he was as afraid of her coming closer as if she had been planning to kill him. He had been less afraid when he thought she had wanted to kill him.

“Stronger together you said? Maybe it is true after all.”

He felt a ridiculous urge to back away but he was up against the stone and could not move. He watched the hand she extended to him as though it were a knife. He watched her fingers splay out upon his chest, trying not to think about it, not to feel her touch. He knew she would feel how fast, how hard his heart was beating.

“Are you still so scared of me?” It sounded like a tease but perhaps there was a trace of sadness or disappointment in there as well.

“No I –” he took her hand, with every thought of removing it but instead he found himself holding it foolishly to his chest – “It is not  _fear –”_ he wished she would stop looking at him, her eyes full of the setting sun, looking into him and offering him all her secrets. He suddenly saw that if he was afraid she was even more so.

“Everything –” he stepped away from the wall and she fell into the spot he had vacated. He did not let go of her hand. “Everything is different – to think that just a week ago –”

“Yes,” she was looking at him steadily, mercilessly, the dim sun flashing in her eyes, her dress complimenting the sunset – “You hated me. You might have killed me if you could.”

“You might have done the same. It seemed – back there –” he gestured to the hall below them and behind – “It seemed too much to sit beside you as a friend –”

“Friends?” she gave a half laugh, an incredulous breathless sound – “Is that what we are?”

He looked at her helplessly, wanting just to fall at her feet, to let her dictate everything, what he should be and do, but she touched the side of his face, lifting his chin, making him look at her, answer her question, impossible though it was –

“Milady –” he lowered his eyes, stepped in, felt her breathe when he breathed – “I am your slave.”

“Yes –” she said, and he felt her move, leaning back against the castle wall, her eyes half closing, making an offering of herself as he offered himself all at once. It was as easy to feel what was happening as it was impossible to stop it now. He was drawn to her as though she were a magnet, he could not stop the pull of his body towards hers; he never had been able to, even when he least wanted to he could not be in the same space as her and not stumble, lurching towards her as though dragged. He could feel her chest against his, taste the air that she exhaled, and in the end he could not have said if he had moved to kiss her or if she had kissed him first, he only knew that he could feel her ribs heave beneath the satin of her dress and that his hand was in her hair and she was soft and familiar and blissful to touch and that he could not help but drink in her kiss as though he had never tasted it before and needed it all his life. He was afraid of demanding too much but he could not stop his body and heart from wanting everything, giving everything, taking everything she was willing to give. He bowed his head into his kiss, turning his height into an offering rather than a threat, letting her lead, needing to follow.

He felt delirious with it, head swimming, body swooning, as though she alone were holding him upright. It felt as though in all the lies between them this was the only true thing. The only thing that mattered. He did not know how he could ever stop.

He did not hear the footsteps on the stairs until she broke away, pushing gently with what did not feel to him like willing hands against his chest, but he broke away slowly at her push and turned to see the Captain of the castle guard coming towards them with d’Artagnan hard on his heels and the others trailing behind.

“My lady –” the guard announced, out of breath with the urgency of his news and blind – or so Athos hoped – to anything he had interrupted – he was only glad it was her who had been addressed and not him, he was not sure he could have found the ability to form words. She was already moving out from around him, her face a perfect mask snapping closed in a second after taking so long to open, her hand curled tightly around the edge of the battlement wall as though for support –

“My lady, our scouts just reported an army headed this way – from Akielos – less than two days ride from here. What are your instructions?”

__x__


	19. Chapter 19

**19.**

_Thank God,_ he thought for the hundredth time as they descended the steps from the battlement – _thank God they asked her and not me._ He had seen the briefest flash of an expression that was like a curse cross her face but she put it away as quickly as it had come out.

“We’ll go inside,” she said briskly – “We’ll talk within.” He realised with the only awareness he had that she was stalling, that she was not as capable of clearing her head to think about this as she sounded like she was. He could not have begun to even contemplate the announcement, he had been so full of her he had begun to forget for the first time in five years that there was anything else in the world, that the world itself was in fact more than just the two of them and the taste of her breath, her heartbeat giving him life. As they filed into the ante room off the main hall, he hung at the back, hoping he would not be overly observed, flushed and still reeling from everything he had felt and wanted and lost himself to.

“Should I alert the men to ride out?” The Captain was saying.

“No,” Milady looked thoughtful, tapped her fingers briskly on the top of the long wooden table in front of her, looking around at them all like a General. “No, to have our army meet them head on could be taken as a declaration on our part rather than theirs.”

“They’re approaching with their army as it is,” d’Artagnan cut in impatiently – “I would say that sounded like a declaration of war from them already.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Porthos said, and Athos noticed his eyes meet Milady’s and she nodded at him in agreement. He found himself staring at her neck and shoulders to avoid looking at her face and the danger of meeting her eye; her choker was rose pink and white lace with a pattern of flowers and vines, gold beading trickling across the hollow of her throat. He wanted to kiss it. He could see the impression in the fall of her hair where his hand had rested and could not stop staring, remembering the feel of it. They were talking. They were still talking and it was important.

“Porthos is right. We’ll ride out to meet them tomorrow – just Porthos and I, yourself Captain, and Constance.”

“Me?” Constance looked startled – “Why me?”

“You know better than any of us what Her Majesty would decide and do – and you have a way with words at times that might convince if my way does not –”

“I don’t have a –” Constance began aghast, but grew silent under a smile from d’Artagnan.

“I should accompany you too,” Athos said, little thinking beyond an unwillingness to be separated from her, a need to protect her at all times.

“No,” Milady shook her head; he thought there might be something regretful in her eyes though there was nothing in the set of her jaw – “No I took you last time and you saw how that went. I need you – and Aramis and d’Artagnan –” d’Artagnan opened his mouth to voice, Athos suspected – a similar objection to his own. Milady talked over him, ignoring it – “I need the three of you to continue on to Marlas as planned and alert the garrisons there. We will join you by the following day if all goes well.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Athos was glad d’Artagnan dared voice the question because he did not. Milady nodded, thinking fast –

“If we do not appear at Marlas in two days time, you can follow the path we will be taking to join the Akielon army and catch up with us – have your scouts take down the route they have seen them to be set upon.” The Captain nodded and Milady nodded back.

“Porthos – Constance – we leave in the morning, shortly before noon will give us time to catch up with them just south of the border from here – the rest of you should leave, heading east at roughly the same time. Now we should all get some sleep, tomorrow may be a difficult day.”

Athos watched the others slowly trail off, Constance and d’Artgnan and then Porthos and Aramis and realised they would all of them be separated in the morning. He could not bring himself to leave until she turned to him –

“You too Athos. I’ll be there soon; there are things I need to discuss here.”

He opened his mouth but would not question her in front of the Captain and ducked out quietly.

As he walked down the corridors, his head full to bursting with her and everything and her – he found his feet taking him to her room rather than his own and his voice monosyllabically dismissing the servant who did not question it.

Her room was exquisite, like the rooms at Arles but gentler, the drapes around the bed swishing against the stone floors in a pool of rose pink and gold. He sat on the edge of the great bed and waited. He was not quite sure what he was waiting for, what he thought would happen. He tried not to dare hope based on the softness of her when he had kissed her, the warmth of her breath against his face; everything he had been wanting had sharpened itself into this single minded burning intent, a finely honed sword that scalded his hands but which he could not put down now for the world. He hoped she would just tell him what to do, what he was allowed. He felt a fool for sitting here waiting like a faithful pet, but there was nothing else he could do. He removed jacket and boots and waited.

He felt as though he was on pause until the door opened and she walked in. She glanced at him and shook her head, sighing and smiling all at once.

“I feel you’ve been a better pet ever since I told you that you did not have to be one,” she remarked. He saw her pause, the glove she had been taking off held in her hand as the necessary implications of this sank in –

“Ah,” she nodded, more to herself than him – “Is that why?” He wondered if she expected him to answer. Instead he rose, went to her, took her hands, removing her other glove and bending his head to kiss her fingers. She let him and he felt himself blessed.

“Must you go alone tomorrow?” he did not dare meet her eyes.

“I won’t be alone.” She was looking down at his lowered head quizzically – “You don’t mean that. You mean must I go without you? Yes. I must, don’t dispute it – please,” she added the last word so awkwardly that he did not argue further.

“What do we –” he began but she put a hand to his mouth to stop him –

“Athos please don’t talk,” she shook her head, walking him slowly back towards the bed. “I don’t want to talk. About what we’re doing about Rochefort – about who we were and who we might be after tonight, I just want –” here only did she seem to struggle for the words.

“Yes?” he breathed it gently, eyes fixed on her as she pushed him back onto the bed, kneeling over him as she had before at Arles and not like that at all. “Anything,” he offered hoping it was articulate enough. “Anything you want”

“I want to pretend” she said “Just for tonight I want to pretend I could be – who I once was with you – can we? – just for one night.”

“Milady, I –” the look she gave him was unspeakably sad, almost betrayed, as though he had somehow unwittingly answered her _no._ He realised that he accidentally had.

“Anne,” he corrected himself and the tears pulled back into her eyes and did not fall.

“I just want it to be simple,” she murmured quietly as though ashamed both of wanting this and for how difficult it seemed to her.

She bent and kissed him and her hair fell over his face and it was, just as she had asked, something like it had been. She kissed him with that same intense greedy innocence that he had assured himself over the years had to have been faked the first time but which he realised now was her, really her and it always had been. He reached back, wanting everything all at once, leaning up to push against her and bringing her down beside him, kissing her with his starved lips, hands finding her all over again, as eager, indeed desperate as he had been on their wedding night, and that same excited, afraid look in her eyes that he remembered and had never expected to see again. She kissed the side of his face, moving her kisses down, her clever fingers working at the lacings of his shirt with a dexterity he could barely believe. He could not understand her skill when his fingers fumbled over every eyelet. It occurred to him that he did not want to understand her skill, and he pushed that away and took her hands in his, his shirt half open, laces trailing. He took her wrists in his hand, remembering with a powerful ache how both her wrists fit in his grasp and turned her gently until she was on her back beneath him, looking up at him with her eyes shining and her chest heaving, not quite touching his but still maddeningly heaving towards him, every part of him tingling to the feel of every movement she made.

He copied her, dipping his head to kiss her throat, pressing kisses into every available space of bare skin which was far too little. He tugged ineffectually at her sleeves and the unyielding fabric beneath him, but nothing came away and he growled his frustration into the soft swelling top of her breasts, needing more but unable to remember a scrap of how laces functioned. She laughed breathlessly at his impatience and he kissed downwards across her chest, down to her waist re-thinking, one hand on her ankle and sliding up her legs, beneath her skirt and then pushing the skirts upwards, wriggling down to kiss her thighs where he could finally have the expanse of her skin he had been seeking. He had forgotten, even in every feverish imagining, exactly how soft her thighs were and could not stop stroking and kissing them, breathing in the smell which was soon that of pure arousal and little else, pressing his nose against her cunt and breathing it in before licking gently with the tip of his tongue, encased in this tent of rose gold and trusting on her body and her sounds to tell him he was doing the right thing. His lips and tongue remembered this so well, the taste of her and the feel, the tension in her thighs, the way her breathing became more like gasping, turning into cries that sounded surprised as he pressed in deeper, burying his face in her and giving her silently every promise and declaration that had been on the tip of his tongue for so long, ready to stay here forever no matter if he could breathe or not, but not needing to when she cried out, her hands grasping for him, pushing her skirts away frantically and reaching for his hair, holding him tight there while she shuddered and screamed and her thighs released their tension, growing soft and boneless and he pressed his lips to their softness and came back to her calmer as though he was the one who had reached completion.

She extended a wrist to him languidly, somehow knowing that he was better able now than he had been before and it seemed easy now, different from before, tugging at the loops and letting the ribbons spool in his hands and pulling, restraining the urge to tear more easily when he saw her smile happily beneath his gentle fingers and her sleeves came apart more easily for not tearing at the laces, the binding falling away and every fresh inch of her skin coming available to the kisses he was allowed to give her this time, almost glad it took so long so as to be able to give her body the worship she deserved, learning her all over again down to the impressions of the fabric against her skin. She twisted to offer him the laces between her shoulder blades and he kissed her shoulders reverentially as he cracked her open; it was like peeling the most delicious fruit, it was like cracking the world apart to feed on the insides. She twisted again when he reached the small of her back and loosened the skirts and when she turned back to lie beneath him she was finally free of everything and he could barely look at her for blushing as though it were their wedding night indeed. He looked at her helplessly, every unshed question glistening in his eyes.

“You can,” she said and “Yes,” and it answered some of them but not all.

“I want –” he said and she knew, of course, she could not do otherwise with his cock so hard and pushing into her urgently in spite of all of his control.

“I know,” she nodded.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said and perhaps it was ridiculous, like a groom to an innocent bride, but he felt as though she deserved this; as though it should have always been this way for her, and knowing that it had not been made his fingers sha+kke with tenderness against her.

“You won’t,” he heard faint impatience in her voice along with the reassurance – “Please. Don’t make it strange.”

His lip trembled as she unfastened him and he half shook for wanting to tell her he loved her, wanting to lay claim to her, wanting to say the word _mine_ though he was not sure if she was quite or if he had any right to suggest it. He had to close his eyes for how beautiful she was, touching her face with trembling fingers, frowning when he opened his eyes to see her eyeing him, his gentleness, with wary suspicion. He wanted to tell her again that he would never hurt her, not ever, that her apprehension was unnecessary, but he felt rose pink and lace and gold around her throat and knew that he had lied to her before and he would not do it again. He traced a finger over her chin, running down to the top of the fabric and let it stop there, remembering his promise – _nothing you don’t want_ but she misunderstood him and shook her head –

“Don’t,” she said and he realised she had thought he meant to take it off – “Pretend I’m perfect?” There was a lilt in her voice that asked him to believe she was joking but he could not quite and kissed her throat, gold and lace detail tickling his lips –

“You are perfect,” he whispered and moved against her, sinking slowly inside her before she could object to the words. The sensations were enough to make him feel as though his head would fly apart and there was nothing in the world beyond the feel of her and the sounds she made filling him entirely. She felt like velvet and he could not get enough of the feeling. He wanted to cry and curse and growl with it; instead she reached her hand to his face and it came away damp. He could barely answer the question in her eyes, could not tell her how utterly blessed it felt to be allowed this, could only shake his head and say –

“I can’t – I can’t have this for just one night,” and her hands on his face were soothing and not answering, yet calming all at once and she whispered him to _hush_ and wrapped her legs around his back in the way he had almost forgotten and could not believe he had ever forgotten but it seemed just now that he remembered everything and that he could not be near her without all of this flooding his senses to overflowing. It was what she did, what she had always done, filling him completely and all he could do was fill her with himself in return. He could not be anything other than desperate to be inside her when she had slipped her way into him so entirely. _This yes,_ he thought _and only ever this –_ and he could feel the one arm she had not wound around him working between her legs and her own cries of delight and her shuddering beneath him threw him into hot, ridiculous relief as he gave her everything he could give in one moment and wish as he came shaking inside her, for a lifetime in which to give more.

__x__


	20. Chapter 20

**20.**

He woke first, barely able to believe that he had fallen asleep at all. He remembered the vague panic he had felt last night thinking _this night could be all that we get._ He thought that he would savour every second – that he _had_ to savour it – to live it more entirely than he had lived through anything else in his life. And he had; he had taken this night like a gift he could not have believed he deserved, and he had felt more awake, more alive than he had ever been. In the end, his body buzzing with more bliss than he thought he could handle, he had actually fallen asleep. It had been the sweetest, warmest, somehow the most innocent sleep he could remember having, all of his limbs as soft as water, melted as though he were a pool of sunshine across the bed. Considering this, he thought, it really was not such a waste of the night after all. Besides, it was worth everything to wake up with his face pressed into the soft of her arm and his hand resting on that place on her hip that fit his palm so perfectly.  _This,_ he thought, almost wanting to laugh with happiness – _dear gods, somebody ask me to choose between this and the rest of the world. Let me show you how easy it would be._

He kissed her arm, not caring where his lips fell, it was only necessary to feel her skin against his lips. He could feel the smooth hardness of her scar against his cheek like a knife; it hurt his chest until he wished he could wash it away with the tears she would not let him shed for her. He kissed the tough white square of skin tenderly, wishing there were other ways to tell her how he loved her for everything she was.

She shifted on the edge of sleep and he felt his heart move to the feel of it. She made a small contented sound that he thought he might remember for the rest of his life, remember with a happiness so deep that it hurt him. He felt a part of his heart take in the sound and clutch it close. The sound turned into the half yawn of a hum as she opened her eyes, smiling at him sleepily. It broke him for the hundredth time of being broken that night. Her eyelashes fluttered like little moths and there was a mistiness of sleep in her eyes so big and smiling, throwing him right back to that time he had thought was lost forever – just as she had asked for last night. He wanted it back forever now that he had tasted it again – he thought he might need it just to survive. All hope of being able to live on just this one night was gone; he knew he could not, not now. There was no longer any way to even think of living in the world without her; he should have known there never had been.

“Morning,” she whispered, her voice not yet fully awake, her hand automatically reaching to stroke his hair, everything just as she had always done and something shy almost in her voice and eyes as though she had not given him everything last night, as though he had not touched every bit of her he could touch and she had not touched back. She had been the same on their wedding night and he had tortured himself for years and cursed her innocence for a lie. He realised now that it never had been, not really. Now he cursed himself instead, knowing that he would never be able to rectify the wrong he had done her, not if he spent a lifetime trying, and he swore in his mind right there that he would.

“Yes,” he replied, unable to keep the regret out of his voice, wishing it were not, wishing he could turn the whole night round and start again, live this over and over. But the sun was watery gold pouring puddles onto the sheets and the morning was cool despite the sun, the apple and wood smoke smell of autumn was on the air and summer was all but done and this time they were waking up together. He tried not to think of the future but now it was only the unbearable immediacy of having to be without her, if only for a matter of days.

“Don’t be sad,” she said, a still half boneless hand brushing his face, the genuine concern in her eyes making his heart clench all the harder.

“I –” he looked down, pressed his lips together tightly, looked up at her again, frightened and determined. “We could do this,” he said quickly, the words coming out in a rush before he lost his nerve. “When all of this is over, when the world is quiet again – we could do this – not just for one night – we could be what we were again”. She drew away from him quicker than she could think, he could feel it not just in the inching of her body but her eyes falling fast and hard back into herself, looking back at him hard and polished and he wished that he had not dared.

“The world will never be quiet,” she said tightly – “There is always something. And we cannot be as we were – not forever, you know that – but –” she chewed on her lower lip until it seemed to all but disappear and eventually looked him in the eye and shrugged as though she did not care but he could see she was frightened, even more so than he had been and spoke as if it were the end of a train of thought, as if to herself – “But then who knows us like we know each other? And after all – maybe –”

His eyes widened to see her pull herself back with such determined effort from whatever mental retreat it was that kept dragging her back from happiness. He could almost see her battling the undertow.

“Maybe –?” he echoed tentatively. She nodded and then suddenly grinned. There was a hint of an awkward child learning how to play in that grin.

“Maybe,” she said, nodding, smiling tentatively. It was enough. It was more than enough. He caught the smile in his lips before it could get away from him. She wriggled happily, stretching in the sheets and luxuriating in all the sensations around her as though she were a cat in a puddle of sun and he could not know anything else other than that this was what he wanted for her forever. If he made it his life’s work to surround her in the sensations that pleased her he would consider his life well spent. He contemplated her now, smiling like a child in the simple feeling of everything, and wondered how he could reconcile this girl with the mistress, the assassin, the enchantress. He felt how stupid he had been to ever imagine she could only be one of all these things, that she was faking one to be any of the others. They were all her  and he was glad, glad to know it, to know her, to understand finally that he could not have expected her to have only one nature any more than he did or anyone. He wondered if she even understood herself like he understood her now and wondered if he could tell her about herself, if she would find it as intriguingly delightful a subject as he did.

“We can’t,” he half groaned half laughed as her playful hands found and teased him for always wanting her – “One night you said,” he bit his lip, wondering what could possess him to argue it.

“One night and one morning,” she corrected, “we leave at noon, remember?”

There was no further objection he could make; surrendering to her as she moved to push him down felt like the ultimate victory.

x

“Something’s changed.” Aramis looked at him sideways from his horse as they rode west from Ravenal.

“And he’ll never tell you what it is,” d’Artagnan teased, grinning from the other side.

“Shut up,” Athos grumbled amiably – “Shut up both of you”.

He wondered what it was that they could see. He had thought they had given the others little to go on with the brief farewells they had made before they left. D’Artagnan and Constance had held each other so tightly before they parted ways it might have been assumed they would never see each other again. He must have heard Constance reassure d’Artagnan at least a dozen times that she was going to be just as alright as he was, that neither of them were facing more danger than the other, that it would only be two days at most before they saw each other again and there really was no need for this. _See?_ Milady had raised an eyebrow at him behind their backs, which echoed without her needing to say it, _there really is no need for this._ But he wished – just a little – that he could at least have expressed his concern for her. He knew they were lying, both her and Constance – they were going towards a far greater danger than the rest of them and it was barely a consolation that occurred to him or d’Artagnan to know that Porthos and Captain Treville were going with them.

He was sure they had been subtle, cold even. He would not have imagined the look he gave her as she rode out could have given anything away. He wondered what there really was to give away. Whatever it was it made him smile inside in spite of his worry and he was even quietly glad for the teasing of the others for reminding him of his cause for happiness and distracting him from the concern.

It was a matter of formalities and brief discussion, which they mostly left to Aramis, to secure the attention of the armies along the border, and after that they were left a day and a half later at Marlas, waiting. Waiting was awful. They were all of them restless and unwilling to express their nerves on account of the others; even Aramis, after two days of forcedly admiring their surroundings and trying to tell everyone the history of the place, became snappish and cross. Athos found himself walking out from the fort to be away from them, sitting on a large boulder on the edge of the old battlefield and watching the sky until it grew dark. He lived in the memory of the sky at Ravenal, of the pinks and golds as he had kissed her, of the sunshine on the bed that morning. It had been a long time since he could have called himself a dreamer but all he did as he waited was dream.

The battlefield was peaceful and calming to him. It was somehow never quiet here; there was always wind in the long grass or the sounds of the woods beyond. It was strange and curiously resonant to stand or sit here and think of the fighting this place had seen over the centuries. The tumult of it and the quiet all at once seemed to speak to his soul and calm him as he waited and worried. Then on the fourth day of waiting, Aramis ruined it.

“They’ll be here today,” he said.

“They said to leave and follow by this evening if they weren’t,” d’Artagnan added. They were slouched at the trestle table in the hall, pushing knives into the wood irritably.

“Athos, don’t go out today.”

But he could not. The thought of something having gone wrong ate at him. He paced the field all that afternoon, taking swipes at the grasses with his sword. If she had been hurt, if they had been taken – he had only just found her again. It was unbearable. A hundred times that afternoon he started towards the fort to demand they leave immediately. A hundred times he made himself wait. When he saw the faintest flicker of a figure coming down the other edge of the field he leapt up, certain it was Aramis come to give him bad news.

It was not Aramis. He knew it was her before he saw her. Something in his chest began to pull at him, making him want to rush towards her. He remembered running through fields with her. She was right; nothing could ever be quite the same as it was. He sped up to as fast as he could walk without it looking like he was speeding up. A metre from her he stopped. She stopped. He stared at her stupidly; she was pale and looked tired but she was here and unhurt and had known where to come to find him. It was so much to take in his knees shook for a moment and threatened to buckle.

“We’ve arranged a meeting with the Regent,” she said, her voice steady, her face pale – “At the Kingsmeet in Akielos in two days time. We ride tomorrow at first light.”

Her eyes were wide and he was not sure he could have believed it at first, but she looked afraid. In all this time it was the one look he had not seen pass her face and he did not know what to say to it but turned his hand palm up helplessly, offering it to her. She reached for his hand as though it were a lifeline, faster and more urgently than he had foreseen, she twisted her fingers into his so tightly that both their hands went numb.

“Aramis says you’ve been coming out here every night until it gets dark,” she said – “What were you doing – watching the stars come out?”

“Something like that.”

“Let me watch with you?” There was something high in her voice, strained through her smile and he wanted to ask her what the matter was, but she walked with him through the field to the boulder at the far end and he sat behind her when she scrambled up and held her scooped in his arms as the shadows gathered. For a while they passed fragments of conversation, about the place, the chill of the wind in the air, how he had spent the last few days until out of nowhere, like any other observation she said –

“I’m scared”.

 He nodded.  He knew she could feel his chin on the top of her head.

“Yes,” he said.

“I don’t know why,” she added defensively – “All of this. What we’ve done, what we’re doing. It’s good work – I think – is it?” she did not give him a chance to answer – “I never cared before – I _don’t_ care – but –”

“But ?”

“Is it worth it?”

“To stop these countries from war or to save Akielos from Rochefort?”

“That one yes, and – both, I suppose.”

“What are we risking by going to this meeting? The Kingssmeet has a rule of no violence doesn’t it? All weapons left behind – how much danger could there be?”

She felt tense in his arms, a little boulder herself, so still under the dark sky.

“That’s what I’m worried about. Why would Rochefort agree to this? Why not just march on Vere regardless? What does he have to gain out of a non-violent scenario? It won’t even be amusing to him, unless – ”

“Unless what?”

“I don’t _know –”_ she was frowning, he could feel it, frustrated and unsure and it worried him without his being able to say what worried him at all.

“Athos –” she leaned her head back hard against his chest – “Athos, swear nothing will happen – that everything will be alright – just –”

He pressed a silent _hush_ in a kiss onto her head and held her tighter.

“I swear,” he breathed in easy response, and the wind whispered through the grasses echoing him, and the stars watched.

__x__

**Well that came out more ominous than I perhaps meant it…..or did it?** **J** **only 4 ish chapters to go now!** **J**


	21. Chapter 21

**Trigger warnings - Rochefort is a creepy rapey fuck, references to extreme past badness, intimidation, threats, the whole Rochefort package. Milady is triggered as fuck do not be fooled by her calm demeanor!**  

 

**21.**

 

It was barely light that morning as they all convened in the yard, the kind of grey half-light that demands one speak in whispers. Somehow they all individually found themselves coming together with their horses in tow to stand for a moment and nod at each other in an unspoken solemn awareness that this was their last crucial ride out together. As Anne looked from one to the other of them, she found herself unsure if she felt stronger or weaker than she had done before for having come to, if not depend upon them, then certainly trust them to a degree that she would not have expected mere weeks ago. D’Artagnan was the brightest, smiling as though they had already achieved a victory, Constance yawning and trying not to let it show how much more she still needed to wake up to be fully functioning. Aramis was saying something about how they would have to find some Akielon attire between here and the Kingsmeet and Porthos, next to him, smiled at her especially in a manner that did not allow her to feel like an outsider to their small group. Treville had come out to wish them luck with their venture and remind them, with a great deal more pressure than he perhaps intended, that the peace and safety of two countries might depend upon their success.

And Athos. Athos stood beside her, not saying anything, not needing to say anything for his presence to reassure her. _I did not mean to become dependent,_ she thought, _not on you, not on any of you._ She was not sure if she felt gratitude or regret. Something had changed in these last few days that she knew would never be changed back, but she knew too that as long as the road they had come had been, this was a beginning as much as an end and they still had a long way to go.

This was literal as well as anything else. There were still two days long riding ahead of them before the rendezvous tomorrow evening. She had sat down with Constance last night and arranged it all; if they stopped for a few hours only tonight then they could cross half the country in two days with very little time for anything but solid riding.

“Well then,” Porthos said, cutting into her thoughts – “Here we are.”

“So solemn,” Aramis nodded – “I feel I should say a prayer for us.”

“We are not riding into battle,” D’Artagnan added.

“So why does it feel like we are?” Constance asked, voicing the question on everyone’s mind.

“It feels that way now,” Milady nodded – “Just wait until tomorrow. If any of you would rather stay here with Treville and wait, none of the rest of us will hold it against you.”

“Well I might,” Porthos added.

“See now _that_ makes it sound ominous,” said d’Artagnan.

“It _is_ ominous,” she nodded – “One would be a fool to trust even in the laws that declare the Kingsmeet a place of peace. So I repeat; anyone who wishes may stay.”

“Nah,” Porthos cracked a grin – “You don’t get rid of us like that. Stuck with us now, for better or worse.”

“I just want to say –” she began and stopped, not sure what she did want to say – “I wanted to say that I – that we –” she floundered and trailed off altogether.

“One for all?” Porthos extended a hand.

“And all for one,” Athos nodded placing his on Porthos, Aramis followed , then Constance, d’Artagnan and Milady made a face –

“I don’t think _that_ is what I wanted to say, no –” she began. The whole group sighed collectively and from left and right Constance and Athos took hold of her hand and when they put it on top of theirs she did not move away until they all moved.

x

Two days later the group paused in their riding as the Meeting Place of The Kings appeared on the horizon, a crown of white on the hills outside Ios. They seemed to make a collective sigh as one entity, and Milady looked around them, surprised to find that their presence calmed the racing in her chest and head. It was strange to be back here; strange to even be in Akielos again, let alone so close to the capital. Strangest of all were the clothes. She had set up a meeting with the cloth merchant Charls in an inn the previous night, an old acquaintance who owed her a favour and now, as the approached the Kingsmeet, they were all dressed in typical Akielon fashion. After the years in Vere she felt painfully exposed and remembering the times in her life when this had been normal brought back memories too many of which were less than pleasant. Athos alone out of them looked more or less at ease in the tunic and Porthos already seemed to have found a way to make the style work but the others – Aramis could not have been more disgusted had his attire been actively unclean and d’Artagnan and Constance were constantly pulling at their hems as if they wondered where the rest was.

Thankfully the day was warm. The marble of the old palace glittered in the sun. They stopped the horses half a mile from it and gathered together to talk for a final time before approaching.

“We have to assume,” Milady said – “That Rochefort will know who each and every one of us is and will use everything he can against us. There is no chance at all that he has arranged these negotiations with anything other than an intention to take us all down.”

“You don’t think he’ll abide by the rules?” Aramis asked.

“I think he will,” she nodded – “And we’ll all have to leave all weapons at the gates. But I think he’ll do everything he can to make one of us break them.”

“You think he’ll try and anger us into attacking him?”

“If he’s successful that would put him in his rights to arrest any one of us who makes a move against him. Yes, I think he’ll try.”

“Then we just have to not rise to it,” Porthos shrugged – “Simple.”

“Is it?” she raised an eyebrow – “Porthos – he’ll attack your parentage – look, I’m not saying this to be unkind I just know him.” She bit her lip – “Aramis – Constance  - d’Artagnan – you’re all slaves, pets, each one of you. I know it’s been easy to forget that in these past weeks but you have to remember it now because he most certainly will know of it. Athos – he took you prisoner in the first place, stole your lands and sold you to me. God knows what he knows of you or – or us – that he might use.”

“And you?”

“A criminal, a slave – or dead,” she shrugged – “Take your pick.”

“Are _you_ ready?” Athos asked gently.

“I’ve always been ready,” she scowled grimly then forced herself to smile – “It’s all of you I’m worried about. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Athos’s fingers brushed the back of her hand, she fought back the instinctive urge to move away but when he took her hand and squeezed it she could see that d’Artagnan was doing the same with Constance and Aramis with Porthos. She squeezed back and did not let go until they reached the first of the columns and were stopped by a group of The Regent’s Red Guard and asked to surrender their weapons. The quiet place rang with the clatter of swords on the ground. Lastly, Milady added the dagger from her boot to the pile with an eye roll and a display of grudging irritation. The guards nodded them through.

Their footfalls felt like a shout in this hushed and hallowed place, echoing through the columns until they reached the carvings of the great kings. It was impossible not to look up and around at the huge marble faces looking down on them as the path widened out into a circle. Everyone, Milady noticed, opened their mouth to comment but just as quickly closed it again unable to do so. In the end the closest anyone got was Constance –

“It’s so –” she began.

“Impressive?” A voice cut in, the sound of speech ringing loudly through the courtyard – “If only we could say the same for you”.

Milady willed herself to be as still and hard as the carved kings around them as The Regent and his men appeared through the columns at the far end. As though to mock them Rochefort was dressed like a Veretian, tight red leather and cord lacing him in like armour, his Red Guard seeped out around him like a sprinkle of blood across the gold earth floor, startling against the white stone. Rochefort walked forward until he was mere metres from them; he was smiling gently. She wished he was not smiling.

“So this is the team that’s been thwarting me,” he drawled – “I honestly thought the Queen of Vere could do better; four slaves, old Belgard’s bastard son and –” his head turned to her like a snake’s settling on its prey – “You – _Milady.”_ He walked towards her slowly, prowling, stopping inches from her. She forced herself to stand still, to meet his eye, to not even flinch when his hand reached for her face –

“I knew it would be you,” he said softly, almost intimately. She did not need to look at Athos to know he was reaching for a sword he did not have, that he could feel the indignity of this man touching her where she could not. She felt nothing. Fiercely, tensely nothing. His fingers brushed her cheek and then fell away and she breathed again just a little. 

“Do you know how much time I spent looking for you? How did you ever escape? Oh yes –” he went on, not waiting for an answer – “My man got back to me – after you got half a troop of mine killed on the Vaskian border,” she almost smirked back at that but forced herself not to – “I’d had my suspicions, of course, and then the description matched – oh yes –” he smiled, with his teeth, almost amused – “You burned over the mark. Quite frankly that only proved to me it would be you. Who else would do something like that? Now tell me –” he leaned in almost as though he was going to kiss her and whispered in her ear – “Did you miss me?”

In her mind she saw herself spit in his face, slap him, push him as far away from herself as she could. In her mind she took out his other eye, stabbed him in the chest. In her mind she did not stop stabbing for a very long time. In the end she took a single step back and said calmly –

“Not for a single second.”

For the briefest of moments Rochefort actually looked angry. She knew it was her lack of reaction more than her reply and counted it a victory. The look snapped shut quickly though and he grinned and stepped away from her briskly, turning to the others.

“Honestly, I’m not sure which of you I can speak to that’s not so far below my notice as to be ridiculous – perhaps if the Comte de la Fere had not so quickly been removed of his title –”

“Did we come here to negotiate or just trade barbs?” Porthos cut in boldly. Milady closed her eyes and started counting in her head.

“Of course,” Rochefort was smooth as snakeskin – “Monsieur de Belgard, your father was nobility in spite of your whore mother –” even the statues around them heard the exhalation of breath that came from Porthos at this point – “Maybe I should treat you as the leader of your little band, except I’ve heard it’s your pet who’s the one with the brains – let me see –”

He turned to Aramis – “Grew up in a whore house, was it? Or a country nobody? It’s so hard to keep track of every little rent boy in the Vaskian court.”

Aramis merely raised an eyebrow as if to ask if that was the best he could do.

“Speaking of which –” Rochefort was unstoppable – “It seems her Majesty’s little fake elopement has come to a rather interesting conclusion. Truly I’m surprised,” He grinned at Constance and d’Artagnan, the former eyeing the latter warningly – “I thought the two of you only bent over for your masters. Isn’t it a bit – _perverse –_ to appreciate the opposite gender in Vere? Or do you call her _Your Majesty_ when she fucks you?”   

Milady stared skywards, trying to remember how to pray as d’Artagnan struggled against the arm with which Constance held him back. They would get through this, she thought, they would, he was nearly done; he had nearly run through all of them.

“And as for you –” Rochefort was still laughing at d’Artagnan as he turned to Athos – “Last time I saw you, you were on your knees. I wonder, did you simply accept everything that happened as your due for murdering your wife? Honestly I’m surprised to see you still alive, the lack of mercy she showed in escaping from me. I was trusting on the two of you to tear each other to pieces, not to band together against me.”

Athos, to her dismay, shot a look to her for guidance. She had been willing him not to. Rochefort saw everything, doubtless, right up to the warning in the look she gave Athos back. He raised an eyebrow and smirked despicably –

“Oh, you _do_ know she was mine before she was ever yours, don’t you?” he continued conversationally – “You were married to her for just under a year, was it? Remind me, _Milady –”_ he did not seem capable of saying it in anything other than tones of sarcasm – “How long was it I had you in my possession?”

“You never _had me in your possession_ Rochefort –” she gritted her teeth and clenched her fists but her tone remained measured, almost calm.

“I just had you,” he snapped, turning fluidly to Athos in his previous pleasant tone – “It was just under a year. In fact –“ he moved in closer to Athos his tone becoming almost confiding – “In fact I find it highly probably that I’ve fucked your wife at least as much as you have. More when you consider she did the rounds of all my men as well.”

She could not look away, though she refused to let Rochefort’s words penetrate to her mind or to touch her in any way. It was obvious that Athos was not weathering it so easily. The look in his eyes would have terrified any other man but Rochefort, and his knuckles were white, his face ghastly. Rochefort grinned, pressing the advantage he knew he was gaining –

“I doubt you even know her as well as I do – you’ve never seen her so vulnerable, so used, never heard her scream and cry and beg for just one moment’s respite – you know I’ve never had more fun breaking any bitch than –”

There was not a single one of them who could move fast enough to stop Athos’s fist connecting with Rochefort’s face, but Porthos and Aramis were on him and dragging before he could tear the man apart with his bare hands, Milady screaming at him –

“Athos  - no!”

Her fury was not abated for understanding where his idiocy came from. She had felt the urge of course, seen herself doing as he had and worse, but more than anything she despaired that he had fallen right into the trap set for them. Rochefort, after stumbling back, rubbed his face and turned on the whole group of them, eyes glittering with triumph. The men were still holding Athos back and it was taking all of their strength to do it, Porthos had placed himself physically in front of him to block his way. Rochefort smiled and retreated several steps from them.

“This man,” he announced clearly – “Has violated the first law of The Kingsmeet, and these other two with him –” he pointed at Aramis and Porthos who were still holding on to a rapidly subsiding Athos – “They are to be taken to the dungeons at Ios to await execution.”

The Red Guard swarmed out, more from behind the pillars than anyone had realised, moving like ants, _too_ ready on command, Milady realised, for all of this not to have been planned. For a moment everything seemed to blur, her world fracturing in front of her eyes, the men resisting their arrest, Constance and d’Artagnan shouting and trying to shield the others, the chaos thickening around her until it reached breaking point at which point she looked over it all, met Rochefort’s eye and said –

“Wait.” Her voice cut though it all, a clear, crisp command, and she saw Rochefort smile as though he had hoped for this too, if not entirely expected it. How could he have? She had not realised until this moment, not only that it was the only thing she could do, but that she was really going to do it. Years of logic and everything she had convinced herself rebelled but it no longer mattered. It was inevitable. Rochefort looked at her, head tilted, eyebrows raised –

“Yes?”

She stepped forwards. He waved at his guards to step down.

“I led this group, I brought them here, I will answer for their misdemeanours.”

“How?”

“Let them go.” She felt her heart sag heavily but would not go back – “Let them go. Take me.”

Rochefort smiled; it was the most sinister smile she had seen from him yet, he licked his lips in the smile and she felt her skin crawl but stood fast, one arm held tight across her like a shield, her fist clenched beneath her throat. The Regent inclined his head in a fractional nod.

“Take her,” he said to the guards, they immediately transferred their attentions to her and she felt her hands bound tight behind her back, the others shouting at her not to do this, Athos pushing the guards aside to run to her, as ready to fall to his knees at her feet as she had once been ready to put him there –

“Don’t – ” he whispered, voice choked, eyes pleading – “Anne please –” she felt another crack in her chest, saw the look of interest that flashed in the Regent’s eye – “Don’t do this” Athos begged - “I’m not worth it.”

 “But it’s not just you,” she looked over his head at the others – “Is it?” He looked at them then helplessly back at her –

“You said you’d kill the world before you ever went back.” He shook his head.

“But –” she looked at him, her eyes growing hot – “You showed me a different world. All of you, one that’s worth killing for only – only I wouldn’t belong in it if I carried on like that. You showed me you – Porthos – Constance – all of you. Oh yes –” she swallowed hard – “You’re worth it. Now go on, get out of here; don’t worry about me.”

Athos would not take his eyes from her and where her face was still dry his were streaked with silent tears. He looked as though he was fighting through a tangled wood of words to find the ones that might mean the most. Eventually he looked at her with the light of discovery in his eyes –

“I love you,” he said.

“I know –” she began; there was more to say but Rochefort’s voice cut through them –

“This is all extremely touching,” he drawled – “Get her out of here.” They were already pushing her away when she heard him add –

“And take the rest of them too.”

She only started to struggle when she saw them being taken, and taken in the opposite direction.

__x__

 

**I am sorry/ not sorry for everything :-)  Also I dunno if there are still any CP fans here that spotted the cameo from the cloth merchant Charls or if anyone noticed the dig at season 3's inconsistency regarding Aramis that I snuck in there? :-)**

 


	22. Chapter 22

**22.**

It had been so easy to make the decision to do this. It was nothing, a moment of honesty to herself, more than anyone, to offer herself for Athos. For all of them, though she knew she would have done it if it had only been for Athos. She wished she had got the chance to tell them the reason why. It was so very simple, after all, when it came down to it. But now, bound and shoved into the back of an open wagon like goods – it was all too horribly familiar to her for her to easily stay calm. She had to. She had to at least lie to herself that she was calm or all might be lost. She could feel her chest heave, her breathing growing ragged, every fibre of her shivering with the effort of not screaming and struggling. All was not lost yet. She still had a plan and too much movement would ruin it, but the others being taken as well had surprised her at the end and she was angry, more with herself than anything else, for not having expected this. She tried to console herself with the assumption that Rochefort would interest himself more with her than with them, but there was at least as much cause for panic as there was consolation in the thought.

 _Athos,_ she thought, and angry though she was with him the thought of him calmed her heartbeat if not the churning in her mind. _And so, is this love, then?_ She wondered – _love that calms the heart down rather than flusters it, that feels like a rock and not a whirlpool, a still point in a storm. Can this be love?_ Who knew it could all be so sane, so peaceful. She wished more than anything that she had told him. She wished she had told him more before the Kingsmeet too. She could have predicted almost word for word what Rochefort would say to them all. She had thought he might do worse, especially to Athos, say worse, lie even. Of course, he had not needed to lie. She realised now that she had not expected Athos to care that much. She had not – and she felt guilty, unfair to him when she realised it – really known that he had loved her. Not completely – until that point. At least – if nothing else – he had proved that with his anger even before he had told her it. He had been unable to bear the thought of harm being done to her and she had no idea how to feel about that.

She could not keep thinking about Athos. He was a distraction she could not afford now. She thought about the letter she had left with the cloth merchant just over a day ago, and wondered and hoped she could still buy them all enough time.

She squirmed her way into a sitting position and tried to survey her surroundings. There was perhaps an hour from here to Ios; she wondered if she could get herself off the back of the wagon without anyone noticing.

“Don’t even think about it.” Rochefort jumped into the back with her, positively cheerfully, sitting himself uncomfortably close to her and grinning as though they were friends. She stared stonily ahead as her heart plummeted and her body fought back a wave of nausea; she stared at nothing, fists clenched in the small of her back and tried not to see him, to smell him, to feel his proximity – to be entirely numb to his existence and presence.

“You know I always did find your arrogance astounding for a little Aquitart street slut.”

She bit back a dozen potentially hastily snapped retorts, but sadly her silence did not seem to bother him.

“So admit it –” he went on, his grin all teeth as the wagon began to move. “You did miss me after all, didn’t you – Anne?”

Her palms felt sweaty in her fists. She felt a strangled sickness in her throat, afraid of what her voice would sound like, aware that anything she said that began with _Don’t_ would only act on him like an incentive.

“That’s not my name,” she said instead.

“Don’t lie to me.”

The suddenness with which he took her by the throat was startling. She had become unused to this – thank God – she wished never to become even half way used to it again. When he finally let go, he ripped her scarf with it and smirked at her throat with interest.

“Fascinating,” he sneered, tracing the marks with an insidiously gentle fingertip. She willed her skin to be stone but could not have felt his touch more unpleasantly than if he had had razor blades for finger nails.

“You can flinch,” he hissed, close to her ear – “I know you want to.”

She did not. She did nothing. She stayed perfectly still and tried to remember how she had switched herself off before. She had made herself so good at it. But it was harder now, after Athos, after finding that there could be something better for her than this, for knowing that touch could be sweet – this was like the beginning of every nightmare she had had for the past six years coming to life. She could not stop her skin from crawling. Unwise as it was, she turned, moving as suddenly as he had, and spat in his face. He drew back quickly with a snarl and a raised hand that he quickly dropped.

“I would hit you,” he said in that flat and measured tone. “But I like you half way pretty and so do the others. You know, I forbade them from going near any of the other slaves for days in preparation for you. I knew you’d be back, and trust me I have plans for you come the morning- and if you think it was hard for you before, then well - ” he dried his face with the edge of a sleeve fastidiously, the smile slinking back onto his face – “After all the trouble you’ve caused me – sleep well tonight, Milady, because it will be your last chance for a while.”

With that he drew back looking pleased with himself. She watched him warily out of the corner of her eye, trying to move even her eyes as little as possible. He moved himself so his back was against the opposite side of the wagon and smiled at her, raising an eyebrow as if in challenge. She did not rise to it; it was a game she recognised well enough, he had tried it before the first time, simply staring at her until she cracked beneath it. She wondered if he could keep this up for the hour remaining to the journey; she knew that he could. She took as deep a breath as she could without him seeing. The knots in her chest were tangled tight as a pit of snakes and less shifting. She tried to be glad he was not touching her but it was a small mercy at best. She had seen people crack when he did this and beg him to hurt them by the end of it. She was not going to crack. She stared back, but she did not see.

When the wagon rolled in to the palace courtyard a hundred years later the driver turned to ask Rochefort a question and he was forced to break eye contact first. For the first time, she saw him mildly irritated and it felt like a bigger victory than any she had yet won. It was short lived – as she looked around the courtyard and saw red banners flying everywhere that had once been covered with the blue of the Kings of Akielos. Then her eyes were hooked not by the banners but by the post that had been erected in the middle of the courtyard. She closed her eyes briefly beneath the flood of memory that assailed her – it was exactly how Rochefort’s courtyard had always been arranged back when he was simply a count. She opened her eyes again quickly; the images were worse with them closed. She turned around awkwardly to see better. There was a system of chain attached to the post that could hold you there, wrists over your head, but also lower you to the floor if the need arose. Those chains could be lengthened until you almost felt like you could move away and then tightened again, slamming you back into the post. She did not want to remember.

When Rochefort pressed his hands down on her shoulders from behind she almost screamed. His hands were like talons.

“I told you we had plans,” he gloated and yanked her by the rope at her wrists as the wagon rolled to a halt. In the yard he gave her over to two guards and ordered her led to a cell. It was easier to think with some distance between them. Her first thought was to fight but she pushed it quickly away. He would expect her to fight men like this first. The knowledge of this relieved her, showed her how little he anticipated how she operated and what she might intend. She had heard him instruct them not to hurt her and though this was ominous it was at least temporary relief. She wondered how long she could continue to stall – it had to be until the last possible moment. If he really intended to wait until the morning to execute his plans – and she realised now that he really did – then that gave her several hours more than she had relied on. She just had to wait. It sounded easy. It was not.

Her thoughts took her to a room on the first floor. It was not the cell she had been expecting but a small pleasant room with room to move and a simple bed in the corner. She did not bother with more than a cursory surroundings check – there were the same two guards posted at the door and nothing she could use that’s he did not already have about her. There was no point in trying to bargain with guards of Rochefort’s. She knew that from before. She lay down on the bed, determined to rest at least, knowing that sleep was an impossibility. Nevertheless as the night wore on she half dozed, never allowing herself to go further than a state from which she could be instantly alert at any moment. Her plan fixed in her head, she wondered about Athos and the others. She hoped to god they were still alive. Something told her that they were. Mostly the fact that if Rochefort had already killed them, he would have gloated to her about it. That, and something less easy to explain – she was sure the world would feel diminished without Athos in it, or that whatever it was that linked them would snap with him gone and leave her bleeding internally. She thought about them worrying about her – somehow she knew now that they would be. She was still not sure how to feel about this. She thought about Athos all but gnawing the bars of his cage, literal or otherwise while Porthos tried to calm him whilst barely listening to his own advice. Porthos. She felt a wave of something confusingly fond; he had said he would watch out for her; he would be worrying too. After what had happened, she suspected they all might. She thought about what had started to take shape between the group of them and wondered if it could still be a possibility, a real life. Wondering was like a fierce flower struggling to blossom in a desert. She could imagine their hands held round the petals of her heart, keeping the fragile thing safe and shielded. _Family,_ she thought _is that what we are?_ She had to know. She could not let this be the end.

When she woke to daylight there was the sharp point of a dagger pointing straight to the corner of her eye, inches away. She froze, could barely even blink. She remembered this too. He wouldn’t. He never did. He wouldn’t. He might. She could feel her skin hum with the tension of making herself a statue.

“I should,” he said – “You owe me, after all. Didn’t help you though did it? |And did you never think how much easier it might have gone for you if you hadn’t? And then of course it might have been easier if you hadn’t fought so hard, and if you had just for a moment pretended to like it. Why – I might have given up on you and saved you some pain. But no. You didn’t. Do you know why?”

She knew what he was going to say and would have rolled her eyes in response if she had not feared for their safety.

“Because you liked it. You were made to be my slave and you’ll know it – if not before the day is out but before the week, or the month, however long it takes. You will be on your knees and begging me to fuck you.” He moved the dagger in an alarming twitch before moving it slowly away from her face and tracing the flat down her throat

“Not yet, then. I want you to see everything before it happens to you. I want you to watch when we kill your husband and your friends – once they’ve watched us defile you of course. Get up. It’s time.”

She stilled the panic at the thought of this with the knowledge it gave her that Athos and the others were still alive. Her hands twisted behind her back and she could not believe that she wished he would continue just for a couple more minutes. She got to her feet and stared through him resolutely. To her relief he seemed unwilling to stop baiting her. The knife at her throat was loose, taunting rather than threatening; she dropped her eyes for a second only to gauge the strength of his grip. As she suspected he was confident in his power, gloating, his fingers light around the handle. She listened to his slurred stream of words and did not hear them until she let herself.

“You know,” he was saying – “What I told your fool of a husband was true – I really never did enjoy breaking anyone as much as I enjoyed breaking you, and really – why are you looking at me like that?”

She forced herself not to smile –

“Because you’re working on two wrong assumptions here,” she spoke to him for the first time since the wagon – “The first was assuming that you _ever_ broken me; and the second –” Rochefort was smirking, clearly knowing she would say this – “The second was thinking I still had my hands tied.”

It only took Rochefort’s brief moment of confusion for her to drive the dagger into his side, just above the hip. It had cut her in the back a little and been awkwardly strapped in ever since the Kingsmeet but it was worth every discomfort to use it to cut the rope at her wrists and drive it into him now. In his moment of pain she snatched the dagger from his hand and, when he reached reflexively for the one buried in him she took the sword from its sheath at his waist and took a step back, pointing it at his chest, as uninterested in his grunts of pain as she had been in his threats.

“Now, I think you said something about one of us on their knees and begging –” she exhaled what felt like the first safe breath she had taken since yesterday – “So move”.

“”Bitch!” Rochefort spat – “Wretched little whore, who the hell do you think you are?”

“Oh.” Now she did smile, jabbing the sword point into him – “Don’t you know? I’m the girl you made a slave. I was a thief and a pickpocket. I was the girl they called Magpie. I am Milady de Winter. I am the Comtesse de la Fere. My name is Anne. I am all of this and more and you will never know me.”

The Regent sank towards the floor with each word and their cessation was marked by the thud of his knees against the floor. Anne stood over him, breathing heavily, eyes glittering and it was to this sight that the others rushed into the room while outside the trumpets heralded the return of the Kings of Akielos.

__x__


	23. Chapter 23

**23.**

He was sure that if he could only put the strength of needing to break free into doing so, he would have to have succeeded. He had not fought this hard when it was for his own freedom, he still barely cared - but that man had taken her, she was in danger and he was ready to kill the world rather than have anyone or anything hurt her again. He could feel and see the others fighting around him, cursing and struggling and he wondered if they too were fighting not for themselves but for her. He could barely process what she had done, could never have foreseen it. He felt guilty for under-estimating her, for not understanding. He wondered that there was still room in him to feel new guilt.

They were bundled into the back of a covered wagon and as it began to roll and jolt its way down the hill he fell into a dismal slump; they all did, staring down, unable to look each other in the eye.

The awareness of his failure threatened to overwhelm him. All he could think about was the lie he had told her at Marlas – _swear that nothing will happen_ she had asked _swear that everything will be alright._ She had been lost and afraid and admitting these things to him for the first time since he had known her. He had not understood before how much courage it must have taken her to admit to weakness or fear. _I swear_ he had had said and it echoed round and round his head, mocking him. He had said it so easily; it had been so easy to say and to even believe whole heartedly that he would – that he _could_ protect her. He was defeated by the weight of all the lies he had ever told her. He wondered who he had ever been to blame her for anything when her lies had only ever been little more than sins of omission. He was the one to have put her on the pedestal and he was the one who had dragged her off it. If she had now ascended that spot again it was only because she had fought tooth and nail to scramble back up there. That spot so far above him that he had always kept free for her in his heart and mind was now stained with the blood that dripped from her hands. But she belonged there now more than she had ever done. He could not move beneath the weight of having failed her. Next to him Porthos had started to struggle again. He cursed.

“We’ve got –” he grunted – “To get out of this”

“It’s no good.” Athos stared at the floor hollowly – “We can’t.”

Porthos slumped back down against the wood and glared at him –

“Is that all you’ve got to say? I’d think you’d try harder than the rest of us.”

Athos looked up slowly, unfocussed and hopeless, the astonishment in Porthos’ eyes was almost furious. 

“I can’t –” he began and looked down again, withered by the looks he was being given.

“We _should_ have a plan,” Aramis ventured tactfully – “No point just tearing ourselves free and rushing off with no aim in mind.”

“Isn’t that obvious?” Porthos continued to glare at Athos. The silence between them was icy and went on for just a little too long. Athos felt as though his mind were trying to detach itself and he might soon vanish into the pit he had been digging for himself or so long. Finally with what felt like the last effort he had, he dragged himself back to the one thing that mattered –

“Anne –” he said, hoarsely, almost a whisper – “We get her back.”

“Oh thank god,” Porthos exhaled as though he had been holding his breath for a long time – “Thought we’d lost you for a moment there. Yes. Of course - but how?”

“If I may venture an unpopular suggestion?” Aramis looked thoughtful. They looked at him.

“It seems to be the first move we’d have to make is towards wherever he’s keeping her. Now he went with her so I can only guess they’re headed back to the palace at Ios, as will we be.”

Athos forced himself to keep listening, and not get ripped to pieces on the knowledge that he would be alone with her. All the same he found his hands struggling against their ties again without even thinking about it.

“So really the best thing we can do is stay in this wagon until Ios,” Aramis went on – “Whatever else we do, if we were to get out now we’d only reach her less quickly.”

“It’s over an hour to Ios from here,” Athos tried not to give into panic, to push away every appalling suggestion his mind threw up as to what could happen to her in that time.

“There’d be nothing we could do Athos,” Aramis said gently – “The best way to help is let them take us all but to her. Once we’re off this cart and in their dungeons we’ll at least be in the same building.”

“In dungeons,” Athos echoed – “How does that help us?”

“Well,” Porthos sighed – “Looks like we’ve got a whole journey to plan in.”

The sound of d’Artagnan kicking a wall was followed by one they could none of them easily place at first, but when they realised it was Athos crying, everyone looked away awkwardly. Still, when he turned his head it was to find that Porthos was offering him an arm to cry on in lieu of any of them being able to move their hands. Nothing more was said until they reached the Palace.

When they rolled into the courtyard the first thing Athos noticed was the other wagon. Aramis was right, she was here. Something in that calmed him. The second thing he noticed was the post in the yard and though he could not fully judge its purpose he was beyond uneasy. He scanned everywhere for sight of her or even the Regent, but seeing nothing, began to panic all over again. As one, they all let themselves be led to the dungeons and since this seemed to unnerve the guards Athos deemed this the right decision. He wondered if she had fought, if they had done the same. He did not want to think what they might have done to her already. He could not stop thinking about it.

“We can’t just stay here!” it burst out of him the instant the cell was locked on them – “She’s – she did this for me – I can’t just let them –” his fists balled in useless rage in their ropes - “I wasn’t worth it.”

“She did it for all of us,” Porthos had slumped into a corner, looking almost as wretched as Athos felt. His eyes betrayed the same wonder at her doing so that Athos had felt bad for feeling.

“I don’t suppose –” Constance began – “Anyone thought of _not_ giving up all their weapons before the Kingsmeet?”

A general groaning signified that they had not.

“ _She_ might have,” Porthos raised an eyebrow to check Athos was listening – “She’s clever. Could be she had more plans than we know.”

“She’s not that clever,” came a cool voice from outside the bars that ran floor to ceiling across the front of the cell. Athos remembered what the urge to kill this man had done for them before and restrained the impulse to just rush the bars and try and drag him through them in however many pieces it took. But he rose slowly and walked towards Rochefort with steadily murderous intent in his eyes.

“Trust me,” Rochefort merely raised an eyebrow looking at Athos as though bored and faintly disgusted by him – “If she was that good would she be where she is now? Entertaining four of my finest?”

Athos bared his teeth, a growl in his throat, his hands flexed behind his back, balled tight as though they wanted to clench the bars to the point where he might tear them apart. Porthos was behind him saying his name gently; it pulled him back as a physical pull might have if any of their hands had been free. Rochefort laughed –

“Yes you should restrain the dog – goodness knows he might do something stupid and get all of you in trouble. Face it –” he addressed Athos personally again with that infuriating air of intimacy – “You don’t know your wife as well as you think you do, She was desperate to come back to me. Tomorrow you can watch us make use of her before we kill you and then at least you’ll die knowing her better. You should thank me and you – ” he turned to d’Artagnan – “Can do the same when we start with your woman, that one needs reminding what pets are for.”

D’Artagnan twisted viciously, jumping instinctively to put himself between Rochefort and Constance even with no way of defending anyone. Constance appeared unsure of what made her more angry – Rochefort’s threat or d’Artagnan’s assumption that he could protect her any better than she could herself.

Rochefort sauntered out, wishing them an airy, cheery good night as though this was what, in his mind, passed for a pleasant chat.

“I’m going to kill him,” d’Artagnan spat.

“Try it,” Athos spat back, furious at the idea.

“Oh stop it both of you,” Constance got to her feet angrily – “We women are the ones being threatened, and all you can do is fight over who gets to kill for us!” She looked ready to spit at them all in frustration at not being able to push anyone – “Well it doesn’t look like any of us can be any use stuck in here, so you may as well both sit down and shut up!”

Athos and d’Artagnan glared at each other for a moment and then, surprising themselves, restrained even their grumblings and went to sit in the corner with Porthos and Aramis. After a moment’s glaring Constance joined them.

“He’s lying Athos,” Porthos said gently, patiently – “He was trying to make you angry.”

“It worked – and we can’t know -”

“It would have worked on any of us,” Constance sighed, still watching him and d’Artagnan carefully – “ _Clearly,”_ she added scathingly. Porthos nodded –

“He wants us to fight among ourselves rather than try and look for a way out of this – Constance?”

Constance was looking thoughtful. She flexed her fingers behind her back, then turned herself around so as to be back to back with the others –

“Aramis –” she turned her head to see where he was – “Can you move your fingers?”

“Mmm,” he tried, nodded – “A little”

“We all can a little,” Athos added.

“But Aramis is more dextrous than the rest of you, come here – back to back with me – I know it’s not much but if we can maybe work on each other’s ropes we could untie ourselves at least”. While they fumbled in the dark Athos and Porthos attempted the same manoeuvre. It was impossible to tell the passage of time as they worked tensely, but it felt like hours and by the time Constance gave a little cry of victory d’Artagnan had fallen asleep. Constance flexed her fingers and quickly freed Aramis and then the others. The state of exuberance upon being able to move freely was short lived however as Athos, shaking at the prison bars growled in frustration –

“This barely helps us! What do we do now? We can’t just keep waiting until –” he stopped, overwhelmed by everything that may occur or be occurring while they remained here useless.

“Until someone comes to rescue you?” They all turned rapidly in surprise and fear to see who had spoken. Emerging – as it seemed from the wall – was a young man in a cloak and hood which covered his head and most of his face. Athos had not known it was possible for someone to slink into a room as though he owned it but the newcomer proved him wrong.

“Who are you?” Porthos found his voice first – “Why have you come for us?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry” he pulled his hood down, revealing shining hair and bright sharp blue eyes in a pale angular face and a mouth that looked ready at turns to sneer or smile – “should I have undertaken your sneaky escape with a more dramatic entrance? It’s possible I am a _tad_ recognisable, you know.”

Everyone, with the exception of d’Artagnan gasped.

“You’re the king of Akielos!” Porthos spluttered.

“Yes” he nodded – “I’m one of them. And do please say that just a little louder, I don’t think every soldier outside will have quite heard. Now are you going to follow me, or do we need to stand around and discuss it some more?”

Athos moved first and soon they were all moving at a rapid walk down the secret tunnel in the palace walls.

“How did you know?” Athos whispered – “And why not just announce your presence and release us?”

“We got a letter.” The King did not even turn as he spoke – “The war with Patras was ended – it had become more of a social visit by this point – anyway. We’d heard of some nastiness on the Vaskian border between Halvik and her women and what sounded like the Regent’s guard. We were already coming home when we got a letter from a cloth merchant friend of ours explaining the situation in full.”

“A letter from who?”

The young man stopped, he turned to look at Athos properly for the first time –

“Athos?” he asked with a raised eyebrow. Athos nodded.

“It was from your wife. You should talk more. Oh yes, we’re going to rescue her now by the way.”

“How did you know?”

“What? The rest? We met your Captain Treville just outside the city – he was on his way to rescue you too – when you didn’t come back from the Kingsmeet  - then we gathered the rest from some Red Guard outside the palace. He’s gone with Damen now to find her.”

“Why not just –”

“Break in? That would be obvious, wouldn’t it? Rochefort’s been planning a complete take over hasn’t he? Of Akielos and Vere. I knew it – I _should_ have known it. I told Damen, he’s the nice one. Nice people never listen. Do you think just three of us could have fought our way through those guards? That the Regent would not have fought back? If so you underestimate him. So now I’m here rescuing you. For which you’re very welcome. Now do you still want to discuss it or do you have a lady to rescue?”

They moved on quickly. Once in the main grounds of the palace they could hear the faint clashes of steel as the King’s Guard – steadily streaming in in the passage of the kings themselves, took arms against The Regent’s Men. Athos cared for none of it now, only Anne mattered, they kicked open door after door in their search for her, swords placed into their hands by the man who now led them, Athos terrified for what he might walk in upon.

What he walked in upon finally, was the sight of The Regent on his knees, backed into a corner, Anne standing over him like a goddess in her husband’s eyes, her sword pointed in a fine poised line to touch his throat. She turned her head as they burst into the room, her eyes bright and glittering, almost gold with victory  and a smile flickering around her lips –

“You’re just in time,” she said.

__x__

**Quick note for any Musketeer fans who don’t know the Captive Prince characters – Damen (who you’ll meet) was heir to the throne of Akielos and Laurent (he’s the blonde pretty one)  to Vere, their story was a case of overthrowing an evil Regent and uniting their kingdoms since when they have both become king (In canon they’re Kings of a unified Vere and Akielos but for this story I gave Anne and Louis Vere and made Damen and Laurent just Kings of Akielos.) Laurent was prepared to give himself up the previous Regent to save Damen just as Milady did here for Athos, hence he’s in a right snarky mood right now about what’s happened under Rochefort’s Regency and the way history is repeating itself.**

**Actually Laurent is always in a right snarky mood. Roll with it :-)**

 


	24. Chapter 24

**24.**

For a moment there was a silence in the room in which every person present held their breath and looked from one player to the other as though they were chess pieces on a board, everyone determining the movement and placement of everyone else.

 It was Athos, to everyone’s surprise, who broke the silence, taking a step towards his wife, apparently unaware that there was anyone else around them.

“I – we – we came to rescue you.” He waved a hand helplessly. She raised an eyebrow and half smiled with a barely perceptible shake of her head. Someone snorted; he suspected it was Laurent.

“I’ve got it covered,” her sword never once wavered at Rochefort’s throat, but something changed in her eyes as she looked at Athos looking at her, as though she were drawing in closer to him without her moving at all – “But thank you,” she added, and from the warmth in her voice it was clear she meant it.

Just as quickly as she had turned to him her eyes flickered to the King, standing just a little apart from their group, watching them all as though this was a play that both interested him and which he had seen before.

“Your Majesty.” She nodded minutely.

“Milady”.

“You received my letter?”

He bowed to her by way of reply and it seemed to Athos that in that brief moment the king and the girl took a complete measure of one another, and in that sizing up understood each other completely. A moment later Laurent’s attention was snatched away by the noisy arrival of two newcomers in the doorway.

“Your Majesty,” Treville entered, bowing, quickly – “The King’s guard has put down the resistance offered by the Regent’s; all those who opposed us are awaiting your judgement.”

“It would appear the Regent also is awaiting our judgement,” added the man who had come in with him. He was tall, almost as broad as Porthos, built like a soldier and poised like a king. There was sunlight and honey in the depths of his eyes – “Your Majesty,” he added, turning to Laurent.

“Ah yes, your Majesty,” Laurent replied laconically – “King Damianos of Akielos and Vere to the rest of you, and the man to blame for this mess you were left in.”

“Ladies, gentlemen –” Damen mimicked Laurent’s address as though it had become second nature to him to do so – “King Laurent of Akielos and Vere and the man about to explain how any of this was my fault.”

“Oh you know it was! “Let’s establish a Regency, Laurent what could possibly go wrong?”

“That is _not_ what I said.”

“Oh that’s exactly what you said and exactly the way you said it!” Laurent’s voice got higher the more he carried on – “That’s not how patterns of force work Laurent! History doesn’t repeat itself like that! Just because the last Regent was a creepy power crazed despot doesn’t mean the next will be, oh no!””

“Well –” Damen looked at his feet and scratched his head – “That may have been what I said but it was _not_ the way I said it.”

“Exactly,” Laurent nodded – “ _Exactly_ the way you said it.”

It was only when they heard Porthos mutter –

“Are these seriously the blokes who rule our country?” that the Kings looked up guiltily, almost as though this verbal sparring constituted a guilty display of public affection and stood up a little straighter.

“Well then,” Damen indicated Rochefort on the floor with Milady’s sword point at his throat – “What do we do with this one?”

Laurent looked almost delighted to be able to reply –

“Just what we did last time of course! We execute without mercy. If you require it Milady, the honour is yours.”

For the first time Athos noticed her hand shake and the sword shiver at Rochefort’s throat. Athos, watching her, could feel her shiver as though it were in his own skin and could almost feel her indecision, viewed by everyone who watched her.

“I should make you beg for your life,” she said steadily, Rochefort glaring back at her icily – “Just like you used to make me beg for mine, do you remember?”

He stared at her as though she were being rhetorical.

“Do you remember?” She repeated, and her fist clenched tight around the sword which did not shiver again – “All of those attempts to break me? All of your many failures? I do, do you? Let’s agree, just this once.”

“I remember,” he gritted back at her through clenched teeth – “Please –” he began. She made a sudden movement and he jerked backwards in terror.

“I’m not going to make you beg,” she snorted and to everyone’s surprise and exhalation of breath, she lowered her sword. “Whatever would be the point? Your execution’s already been ordered. Why should I get blood on my hands over someone so utterly irrelevant to me? Thank you –” she turned to the Kings, Laurent already motioning his guard to come take the fallen Regent away – “Your Majesties, for the offer, but I must respectfully decline.”

She dropped the sword and met Laurent’s smile, stepping back and towards the others.

“You’re certain?” Athos asked.

“Nobody would judge you,” Porthos added

“Other than favourably,” d’Artagnan finished.

“Forgiveness is overrated,” Constance nodded.

Anne smiled and looked around them almost breathlessly, her eyes full and overwhelmed.

“I don’t forgive him,” she said; Athos’s hand was on her shoulder and she could feel it giving her more strength even than she needed. “But I said – didn’t’ I – before – that I’d found something worth not killing for, and why should I let him ruin that. He’s not worth it.”

She was smiling, Athos could see her face glowing with it and Porthos grinning and pulling her into an awkward hug. She was stiff and her face creased with confusion but she allowed it all the same and squeezed his hand when he let her go.

“It would seem we are indebted to you,” Damen’s voice was sunlight, melting away the last of the cold that Rochefort had left behind. At the Kings’ approach the little group found itself falling into a not quite perfect line. They all, Athos felt, seemed awkwardly pleased, with a shy satisfaction that seemed to spread along the line and belong to all of them together and individually.

“I wonder –” Damen turned the words over slowly as though he were about to ask a favour of them and not, as it more appeared, be about to bestow a favour of his own. He looked to Laurent and Laurent nodded at a question he did not ask – “I am sure you all have places you would rather be –” Damen went on – “But we could – if you would consider it – use a body of men – and women – like you, as a special sort of King’s guard. If it were a task that might be of interest.”

“You do rather seem to have saved the country in our absence,” Laurent added in agreement. “We are, as he says, indebted to you,  and I can assure you the offer is at least as selfish on our part as it is an honour to you all.”

“I’m in,” Porthos grinned. Aramis and d’Artagnan quickly followed suit.

“Me too?” Constance was grinning, bright eyed – “Really – with fighting – and all of that too?”

“From what I saw in that cell –” Laurent raised an eyebrow – “They would not have survived without you. I assure you if you decline we may have to retract the whole offer.”

“Oh I’m in!” Constance was breathless – “Absolutely – I – thank you!” she spluttered – “-Your Majesties!”

Finally all eyes turned to Athos, who turned his eyes only to Anne and she to him.

“It goes without saying,” Damen said – “That the traitor Renard has been removed from Pinon and your lands made yours again should the Comte and Comtesse wish to return to their estate.”

“Likewise if you should wish to return to the estate of Milady de Winter in Vere,” Laurent added. “Goodness knows you’ve done enough for both countries.”

“We should –” Athos began.

“May we perhaps –” Anne said simultaneously. Athos was not sure when her hand had slipped into his, it felt for a moment as though she had never been so far parted from him that there was ever a moment they were not touching. He curled his hand around hers.

“You should discuss it,” Damen nodded at them tactfully – “Take your time. We’ll await you in the great hall”.

The party swept from the room, buoyed up on a cloud of victory and high feeling, Porthos grinning at them both in a way that reassured them no matter what choice was made, Aramis clapping him on the shoulder. Constance was in a dream and d’Artagnan just as giddy, unsure if he was holding her up or she him. Damen paused in the doorway, looking back to stare at what he would never have expected; Laurent dropping to his knees before this woman they barely knew in the deepest gesture of respect he had ever seen his lover make. The kneel lasted only half a second before he stood up straight again, head still bowed, taking both her hands in his. His eyes were wide, filled with something Damen had not seen in a long time –

“You didn’t kill him,” Laurent was saying quietly, as though awed – “I rarely regret my actions but you – you did not kill him. One day you will have to tell me how.” He turned away, his eyes returning fast to their usual crisp clarity. He patted Athos on the shoulder in one slow gesture as he left them, saying –

“She loves you. Endeavour to deserve it.”

And they were gone, the room silent in their wake. Athos and Anne looked at each other as though they had never been alone together in their lives. Anne had still not dropped her hands after the king had taken hold of them and Athos reached forward to take them in his. His hands enfolded hers, it felt as though he were holding onto all of the treasure in the world.

“Do you?” he said, when the silence became too much – “What he said – is it true?”

“Do you really think I would have done what I did if I did not?”

“It was – for all of us – you said.”

“Perhaps. But first it was for you.”

Did he hurt you? He came to see us – he said he’d –”

Just the thought of it made his nostrils flare, his eyes flash bright and damp with anger and uselessness. She slipped a hand from his and touched his face. He wondered how she was so cool when the day was so warm with the last of the frantic autumn sun.

“He lied, Athos.” She was gentle. She had never been this gentle. He supposed he had never needed it. He wondered how she knew him and how it was that he could begin to think that he knew her – “He didn’t hurt me. Not this time. He didn’t do anything. I’m fine –” she amended herself – “- I will be fine. You came back for me.” She added this last as though it were more than half of the reason why she would after all be fine.

“We had to.”

“You didn’t.”

“We did. Ask Constance what idiots we were, how little we managed without you and I –” he dropped his eyes from hers. She was too wide eyed, too beautiful, her eyes so bright so sure of herself and curious about him.

“You -?” she nudged.

“I spent five years trying to live in a world without you” he admitted – “I could not last one night.”

He leant his head into her hand as she pushed the tumbled hair behind his ears. It never stayed, she would always be here smoothing his hair back, fingers soft and sure against his skin. This was the way they had always come together. Everything, he thought, everything was falling into a place that felt good and comfortable. He nuzzled into her hand exactly like a pet. Then he felt her fingers under his chin, gently demanding, drawing his face to hers and he breathed her in, drank her in, took her kiss until it filled him and gave her back all he had in return. His arms wound around her and could not hold her close enough, fireworks of relief and pleasure exploding in his chest. The push of her body against his was becoming increasingly urgent. He had to stop –

“We have to –” he began, barely willing –

“Go back downstairs,” she finished, groaning softly .

“What do we tell them?” Athos asked her -“Where do we go now? Back to your estate or mine? Which feels more like home?”

“Home –” she echoed – “It’s not a place, is it? It’s people. So I hear.”

“We stay then?” he looked at her, knowing the answer in his heart already.

“We stay. With them. Doing this, whatever it is that we do.”

“I think –” Athos grinned, a wide smile spreading all across his face – “I think I can’t wait to tell them.”

Her smile was everything, it sang to his heart even when she shoved him –

“ _I’m_ telling them. You can smile and nod.”

In the end Athos was not sure what sound was the stranger to him – the sound of his laughter or of hers and from outside there came the peal of the bells ringing out above it all.

__x__

  **Mush and soppiness and Happy new year everyone! Watch this space for my forthcoming modern AU I have no idea what it’s gonna be called yet but it’s bdsm and dating and feels ahoy and honestly what more does one neeed?** **J**


End file.
